


A Minor Crest of Death

by Ellisama



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Dedue Molinaro/My Unit | Byleth, Minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Mutual Pining, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Sreng worldbuilding, Sylvain-centric, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, this started as a singledad au and then became so much more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25635046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellisama/pseuds/Ellisama
Summary: His bride is beautiful, even if her smile is paper-thin. Sylvain doesn’t mind: he’s been practicing his own fake smile for decades. The ceremony proceeds without a hitch, and under the watchful eye of everyone that politically matters in Fodlan and Sreng, Sylvain becomes a married man, vowing 'until death do us part' to a woman whose name he can barely remember.That night, before he goes off to consummate the price of peace, he meets Ingrid’s eyes once. He ensured that there would be more than enough exotic food for her to enjoy, but even though the festivities last until sunrise, he never sees her take a single bite. It is only when their eyes meet that his carefully crafted facade breaks, and that gnawing void that consumes everything on its path roars it’s head, screaming at him he’s making a mistake. He closes his eyes and carves the smile back on his face. He’s doing this for Fodlan. What is his own happiness compared to that?--Three years after the end of the war, Sylvain brokers a lasting peace between Fodlan and Sreng. The price? His hand in marriage. A story about Sylvain, death and rebirth.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 97
Kudos: 138
Collections: Enabler's Gift Exchange





	1. Death, Misunderstood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [newmrsdewinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newmrsdewinter/gifts).



> Did you know that all the crests are linked to the major arcana/tarot cards, and the Crest of Gautier just happens to be Death? 
> 
> This is a gift fic, the original prompt was: Single dad Sylvain in a modern or post time skip AU. Bonus points for eventual sylgrid.

_Death is one of the most feared cards in a Tarot Deck, but it is often misunderstood. The Death card usually depicts the Grim Reaper, personified Death, sometimes riding a horse but more often wielding a sickle or scythe. Surrounding it are dead and dying people from all classes, including kings, bishops, and commoners._

* * *

The night before his wedding, Sylvain gets terribly drunk. It’s traditional in Adrestia, but Adrestia has been gone for three years ever since the former Empire got absorbed into the new Holy Kingdom of United Fodlan. Sylvain would know; he fought for it day and night for half a decade. Sometimes, he still wakes up screaming, grasping for his lance, only to find a somewhat bewildered bed partner staring back at him strangely. 

He is drunk, but there are no excuses. Ingrid and Felix haul him back to his own bed anyway because they’ve been through worse together, so much worse than cleaning up the spilled wine from an expensive silk shirt. They’ve heard him cry after the blood didn’t come off his hands anymore and howl brokenly into the night after he killed Dorothea. What’s a drunken confession compared to that?

“I don’t want to get married,” Sylvain moans, the world spinning around him in a thousand colors. 

He’s not drunk enough to miss Felix's unimpressed glare. It’s his most stalwart companion after all. “Then don’t.”

Sylvain laughs, and then nearly throws up. The blissful forgetfulness he usually associates with being drunk is quickly fading into plain discomfort. He’s turning thirty this year. Sylvain never imagined he would get that old, but now that the milestone is approaching, he doesn't know what to do with it. Well, besides getting married tomorrow to a girl he doesn't know for the sake of peace.

“I can’t,” Sylvain protests weakly. “Gottaa…. gotta…. Make it worth it. Gotta make Dorothea proud.”

Ingrid looks away, and maybe it’s the alcohol coursing through his veins or the dim light of his bedside lamp, but for the first time in over a decade, he can’t make out her expression. 

“If I don’t--” He waves his hand in the direction of his bed, or where he thinks his bed should be. The room is spinning at an alarming rate. “--then we’ll be at war with Sreng again in a few years. And I… I’m so tired of fighting.”

“I know,” Ingrid says, gently combing a hand through his hair. “But take it from me: marriage isn’t the only way to achieve your goal.”

“I’m not as strong as you are,” Sylvain confesses without thinking. It’s true, of course. Nobody is as strong as Ingrid. 

From the look of his friends’ faces, they don’t agree. 

“You are,” Ingrid insists. Sylvain doesn’t fight her. Instead, he allows his friends to put him to bed and pamper him a little, although not without the usual scolding. It’s so nostalgic he has to choke back tears.

“Won’t you elope with me?” Sylvain only half-jokes when Ingrid fluffs up his pillow just the way he likes.

He regrets his words when a flash of pain flickers over Ingrid’s features. It’s gone the next heartbeat, but Sylvain can't forget that it was there, even now. They know each other too well. 

“Don’t say things like that,” she warns him, frowning on the outside, but hurting on the inside. It doesn't make sense because he is the one getting into a loveless marriage, not her. 

Sylvain flashes her what he hopes can pass for a smile. “You know me, always looking for a pretty girl to please.”

“ _Sylvain_ ,” Felix warns him, sounding both patient and annoyed at once. Three years of being the King’s Right Hand has made him a better mediator than Sylvain would have ever thought him capable of, but he's still Felix.

Sylvain looks at his friends. Older, wiser too. Pursuing their dreams. Making the most of the peace they fought for. He’s proud of them; he really is. He just wishes he could be there to see it. But even while drunk, he would never say that. He has made his bed, and now he will lie in it. 

Sylvain closes his eyes and pretends to fall asleep. His theatrical snores fool no one. He is too much of a coward to ask them to stay, to crawl into his bed and hold him close as they did during their childhood, and then again during the worst of the war. He hates himself a little for it after he’s all alone in his too-bright room. All alone, save for his thoughts and regrets, and the alcohol in his veins.

Sylvain turns and twists into the sheets until he’s lying in the center of the bed, taking up as much space as he can. It’s his last night in his childhood bed, and he hasn’t been a child in a long time. There are worse things than a political marriage, he reminds himself. The Lance of Ruin’s glow burns in the corner of his room, ever watching. 

**XXX**

During the war, Sylvain spent countless nights dreaming about leaving his name, his title, and every rotten thing that came along with it behind over and over again. He wasn’t the only one by far, but many of his former classmates didn’t let it remain a dream once the peace treaty was signed. 

Dimitri had offered him a way out the day after his coronation: a knighthood, just like he offered Ingrid. Nobody within their right mind would dare to deny the newly crowned King of Fodlan if he demanded Sylvain become his vassal. Not even his father. Officially, the position included a place on Dimitri’s council as his advisor on foreign affairs, but really, it was an escape from a life as Margrave Gautier. 

Ingrid took her offer with both hands, and as a gesture of goodwill, Dimitri paid half of her bride price to her father. They never talked about it, but Sylvain knows that even though she hasn’t spoken a word to her father ever since that day, Ingrid still sends at least half of her monthly salary to Galatea. Felix was never offered a knighthood, but he is a Fraldarius. At the end of the day, there was nothing that would keep him away from Dimitri’s side, even if he liked to pretend otherwise.

For a moment, Sylvain had considered bending the knee too. To stay would mean he could be who he wanted to be - _whatever that was_ \- and more importantly, watch over his friends. Dimitri looked so strong and regal during the coronation ceremony itself, but Sylvain had been there the night before when he had been reduced to tremors and tears. 

He had considered it truly. But before Sylvain could accept, he remembered Miklan, Dorothea, and all their other classmates. Bernadetta, burned to death. Lorenz, bled out on the battlefield. Thousands and thousands of civilians, whose death by starvation was slow and agonizing. And then the moment was gone, and Sylvain was still alive and burning at the same time, but most of all so tired of fighting. 

He thanked Dimitri for his offer, bid goodbye to his friends, brought the Lance of Ruin back to his father, and rode to Sreng under the banners of the Kingdom. He talked to each and every lord of Sreng, learned their language and their culture, and after years of constant diplomacy, brokered a peace that might just last. He remembered how great he had felt that day four moons ago, when the lords finally signed a formal peace treaty. 

There was a price, of course. Sreng would remain independent from Fodlan. A small part of Gautier territory was to be returned to them. It wasn't really a loss; it was a cold and barren land anyway, but the ground held religious value to the people of Sreng. Either way, Sylvain was glad to be rid of it, even if his father stubbornly disagreed. The trade agreement would bleed Gautier dry for the upcoming five years, but no more than a war would have. Documents were drafted, a thousand amendments were made, but in the end, they all agreed: both nations would benefit from peace. 

But Sylvain hadn’t spent three years speaking and breathing Srengi customs for nothing. Every important decision was secured with a marriage. Only if the marriage was blessed with a child - or so the Srengi believed - did the gods favor the agreement. Only then, peace would truly be honored.

Sylvain didn’t think twice about agreeing to marry the eldest daughter of one of the most respected southern chieftains. He had killed and bled for peace. What was marriage compared to that?

**XXX**

His bride is beautiful, even if her smile is paper-thin. Sylvain doesn’t mind: he’s been practicing his own fake smile for decades. The ceremony proceeds without a hitch, and under the watchful eye of everyone that politically matters in Fodlan and Sreng, Sylvain becomes a married man, vowing 'until death do us part' to a woman whose name he can barely remember.

That night, before he goes off to consummate the price of peace, he meets Ingrid’s eyes once. He ensured that there would be more than enough exotic food for her to enjoy, but even though the festivities last until sunrise, he never sees her take a single bite. It is only when their eyes meet that his carefully crafted facade breaks, and that gnawing void that consumes everything on its path roars it’s head, screaming at him he’s making a mistake. He closes his eyes, and carves the smile back on his face. He’s doing this for Fodlan. What is his own happiness compared to that?

XXX

His wife is pregnant before the end of the year. His father-in-law is pleased, and if his own father wasn’t too sick to understand a word Sylvain says, he would be too. Sylvain receives what seems like an excessive amount of letters of congratulations from all corners of the continent, each more frivolous than the rest. _A child of peace,_ Dimitri writes in his overly sentimental letter. _Let’s work hard to make a beautiful world for them._

He means well; they all do. That doesn’t stop Sylvain from burning them one by one. 

Mercedes is the only one who understands. She arrives in the middle of a snowstorm, but the second she sets foot at Castle Gautier, it is as if summer has come early. She takes one look at him before she drags him to the kitchen and gently forces him to help her make all kinds of baked goods.

“Are you afraid?” she asks while kneading the dough into even shapes. They’re making cookies apparently, Annette’s favorites. 

“Deathly,” Sylvain confesses, trying to shape a ball of dough into a bird. “What if they have a crest? What if they don’t?”

“It’s a different world than the one we grew up in, Sylvain,” Mercedes reminds him kindly. “You are not your father. Your wife is not your mother. Miklan can’t hurt you anymore.”

Sylvain knows that. He put a lance through Miklan himself, after all. Dug his own mother’s grave after she perished due to the complications of an infected arrow wound. It won’t be long before he will do the same for his father, if he keeps slowly withering away like this.

He knows all of that. But still, he feels his heart race in his chest every time his wife turns around and reveals her swollen stomach to the world. It’s a reminder he can’t hide from, like a ticking clock, always moving forward. 

“What if they…” He swallows and squeezes the dough bird in his hand until it is unrecognizable. “What if they end up like me?”

“I should hope so,” Mercedes replies without a moment's hesitation. “After all, you are a wonderful man, even if you try everything within your might to disprove that sometimes.”

“I’m not,” Sylvain says resolutely. Then, after glancing around to ensure that they are truly alone, he softly adds. “I… I cheated on my wife. Twice.” 

She was a traveling mercenary that reminded him slightly of the professor before she went on and became the reincarnation of the Goddess, or whatever the fanatics were calling her nowadays. He regretted the affair before morning light, but not enough to not pay her another visit the next week. 

Mercedes sighs deeply. “ _Sylvain_.” She doesn’t sound surprised, just disappointed. It’s somehow even worse.

“What do you want me to say? You knew this would happen! Everyone did!”

“What do _you_ want me to say?” Mercedes answers, and Sylvain feels like he is five years old again when she looks at him like that. “Do you want me to agree? I don’t. I think you can do better. You’re just afraid to let yourself be happy.”

“I am happy,” Sylvain defends.

Mercedes doesn’t say anything in return, but the way she draws him into the circle of her arms says more than a thousand words. She holds him when his body starts to shake, when his knees give in, and when the tears of the past decade catch up with him. Mercedes never lets go, not until they’re both kneeling on the ground, covered in flour and snot and regrets.

“Couldn’t I have married you?” Sylvain croaks out, a wry smile on his tearstained face.

Mercedes smiles sadly at him and daps a few tears away with her badly embroidered handkerchief - a gift from Dimitri apparently. “That wouldn’t have solved anything.”

“I could have loved you.” It comes out more desperate than sure. 

“Maybe. But I couldn’t have made you love yourself,” Mercedes whispers back, and Sylvain is too tired to deny it. 

**XXX**

Mercedes spends more time with his wife in the two weeks she stays in Gautier than Sylvain has during the entirety of his marriage. When she leaves, they hug like old friends, and Sylvain can only wonder what they whisper to each other before Mercedes turns to him.

“Take care of yourself,” she says, kind but stern. A warning, although unrecognizable to anyone who doesn’t have the pleasure of knowing her as he does.

“I will try,” he answers, a wolfish grin on his face that is as fake as the rest of him. 

Mercedes shakes her head, but she smiles too. Pecks both of his cheeks and reminds him to shave more often.

“I will return after your child is born,” she promises before she and some of his best knights take the road south, back to Fhirdiad. 

Sylvain watches her until she is nothing but a dot on the horizon, and then a little longer. A terrible part of him hopes she will never return at all, and he hates himself all the more for it.

**XXX**

His daughter is born on the fourth of the Ethereal Moon. Apparently, the entire ordeal lasted for 48 grueling hours, and his wife almost died twice. Sylvain wasn’t there. The midwives told him to wait, and Sylvain took it as a blessing to go hunting. 

He’s horrible with a bow and an arrow, but he doesn’t return until he has shot at least one bird. It takes a week. When he returns to Castle Gautier victorious, his father has slipped into a coma, and his daughter is crying loud enough to wake the dead.

“Her name is Enkhjargal,” his wife tells him, her eyes blazing but her arms trembling to hold up their daughter to him. “It means _‘peace blessing.’_ ”

The little baby wails loudly, but his wife does not take her back to her breast. They stand like that for what seems like an eternity, waiting for the other to make the first move. 

“I don’t know how to hold her,” he confesses with a trembling voice, taking a step backward.

“Then learn,” his wife throws back at him without hesitation. She still doesn’t take her daughter back. Before she became a bargaining chip in the peace he brokered, his wife was a warrior. Sylvain has seen her practice in the courtyard: her form doesn’t hold a candle to Ingrid or Felix, but she could match them in sheer determination. 

Sylvain has always been the slacker between the three of them, the one that gives in too easily. He sighs from the bottom of his heart and takes the baby from her hands. The kid is a wrinkly mess, too pink and too small. _She will break the second I drop her_ , he thinks, and immediately presses her closer to his body. 

“Support her head,” his wife says, and Sylvain adjusts his grip. Dark curls spill between his fingers. “Yes, like that. See, you are a smart man. Learn quickly.”

Sylvain barely hears her. The baby has stopped crying and instead is staring up at him with eyes like his own. Like Miklan. Like his mother. The child blinks owlishly, unseeingly. Tries to grasp for something that isn’t there, and instead finds his jacket. He feels the heat radiating off her little skin, and is surprised by how hard she pulls on the fabric. 

“She’s strong,” he mutters, his eyes wide in wonder. His daughter, he thinks. He’s holding his daughter. _His!_

“The Gods have blessed our contract. My people will be pleased,” his wife says in agreement, a small, exhausted smile on her lips.

Sylvain would have replied, but he’s too enraptured by the tiny fingernails digging into his coat. Her hair is dark brown like his wife’s, but her nose might just grow into his own. 

“Enkhjargal,” he echoes, his voice like a prayer. He presses a soft kiss against his daughter’s brow, his heart beating loudly in his chest. “Enkhjargal Ingrid Gautier.”

“Ingrid? Is that the name of your mother?” 

Sylvain shakes his head. “No. It belongs to the strongest woman I know,” Sylvain says, and smiles when Enkhjargal starts sucking on his finger, eager for milk. She is immediately living up to her namesake.

His wife nods solemnly. “Then so it shall be. We will have peace for all of her years. May the Gods bless you with a long life, Enkhjargal Ingrid Gautier.”

Sylvain nods, feeling both frightened and elated at once. He cradles his daughter against his chest, rocks her back and forth, and vows: “You will know nothing but peace, my precious Enja. Daddy will make sure of it.”

**XXX**

Sylvain has few memories of his parents during his early childhood. Young parents of noble birth are advised to keep a distance between themselves and their children. Winters in the north are long and cold, and many children don’t make it to spring. It is best not to get attached, to spare the heartache, or so he is told by the wet nurse.

But it’s a new age, so Sylvain ignores their advice and sleeps on the floor of his daughter’s room every night. He ensures that the fireplace never goes out and that Enja never goes hungry. The winter is long, and the pile of documents waiting for his eyes and attention is getting bigger and bigger, but Sylvain doesn’t care. He’s not Margrave yet, even if his father is too weak to even lift a pencil on his best days. It doesn’t matter. There is no war, not anymore, and so instead of holed up in his office, Sylvain is there when Enja smiles for the first time. As if any form of statecraft could compete with that. 

He rarely sees his wife. She trains and does her duties, or so he thinks. They are two strangers living in a castle large enough to avoid each other for weeks if they so desire. It doesn't matter, not really. He has Enja.

He’s in the middle of changing her diaper when Ingrid strides into the nursery unexpectedly. She’s wet and covered with quickly melting snow. She looks like she jumped right off her pegasus to see him without taking the time to change out of her travel clothes. She looks beautiful, Sylvain thinks, and then immediately tries not to banish the thought from his mind.

“I would shake your hand, but I’m kind of filthy right now,” he says instead of a greeting.

“I can see that,” Ingrid replies cryptically. She watches him like a hawk while he changes the cloth for another one. Enja will have spoiled it before the end of the afternoon, but Sylvain doesn’t even smell the stench anymore, so accustomed has he become to this chore. 

Enja wiggles happily when he kisses her toes, and Sylvain pretends he doesn’t feel Ingrid’s eyes burn into his back.

“Congratulations,” she offers awkwardly after he is finally done.

“Thanks,” he replies while cleaning his hands. “Do you want to hold her?”

“Oh… I… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Sylvain smiles brightly at her. “It’s not hard, trust me. Besides, you have more experience with children than I do.”

“Baby pegasi don’t count.”

“It’s all the same,” Sylvain presses on, and gently offers Enja to her. “Trust me. I’m there to catch her if anything should go wrong.”

Ingrid doesn’t fold until they’re both sitting on the ground, shoulder to shoulder. Enja is more than eager to make a grab for Ingrid’s hair, fascinated by the way the light reflects on her blonde strands.

“You grew it out again,” Sylvain says, equally captivated. “It looks good on you.”

“I haven’t had time to cut my hair lately,” Ingrid says defensively, and she winces when Enja finally manages to catch a lock of hair and pulls at it with a vengeance. “Auch! She’s strong!”

“She takes after her mother,” Sylvain says fondly, and carefully manages to liberate Ingrid’s hair from his daughter’s hand. 

When he is done, Ingrid is looking at him strangely.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says quickly. Too quickly. “I’m just surprised.”

Sylvain’s easy smile falters. “That I haven’t abandoned her to a governess yet?”

“That you’re enjoying this. I didn’t think you would.”

“Neither did I,” Sylvain admits to the both of them. 

The silence stretches between them. Enja babbles and burps, eager hands already searching for their next victim. When Sylvain offers her the little lion toy Dimitri made for her, she smiles brightly. 

“She looks like you,” Ingrid says, but there is something off about her voice. 

_Of course she does, she’s my daughter,_ is what Sylvain doesn’t say. Instead, he takes one look at the set of Ingrid’s shoulders, the slight furrow in her brow. 

“Why did you come here?” he asks, carefully keeping the hurt out of his voice.

Dimitri had taken time out of his busy schedule to accompany Felix to Gautier before the end of Enja’s first moon. Mercedes and Annette visited within a week after their departure, and although Ashe was too caught up in talking down a civil uprising near Nuvelle, his letters arrive like clockwork every other week. Even Byleth - eight months pregnant and seemingly entirely unhindered by it - visited together with her husband, Dedue, a few weeks ago. But Ingrid, one of his oldest friends, never visited. She sent him one letter, delivered by Felix, that was brief and formal. It stung, and Sylvain is too sleep-deprived to hide it as well as he usually would.

He looks at her when she doesn't immediately reply. She's biting her lip, and there is something painful in the way she looks at Enja. Ingrid doesn’t look at him when she finally does speak. “Why did you name her after me?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Ingrid’s eyes narrow. “I’m alive. You don’t name children after living people. You honor the dead. It’s a tradition.”

“It’s a new age, Ingrid,” Sylvain counters acidly and takes his daughter back into his arms. “An era of peace. I will name my daughter however I damn well please.”

“.... why me, Sylvain?” Ingrid repeats, but this time she meets his eyes. She’s not smiling, not scolding him. She’s on the verge of tears, but Sylvain doesn’t know why. Doesn’t remember the last time he saw her cry, and is suddenly deathly afraid of it. If Ingrid breaks, then what does that mean for the rest of them?

He sighs. “Because you’re you, Ingry. Strong but selfless. Devoted but not blindly so. Selfless, yet you never lose sight of yourself,” he pushes a lock of Ingrid’s hair back behind her ear. “You’re amazing, Ingrid. Any girl - any person - would be proud to be even a bit like you.”

Ingrid stares at him, her lips trembling. “You can’t just _say_ that.” She sounds angry, and if he didn't bear the brunt of her anger far too often to recognize that this isn't it, he would have missed the way she's shaking. “What would your wife think if she saw us like this? Goddess, why did I come here?” She mutters the last part under her breath and scrambles up to her feet.

Sylvain blinks rapidly and follows her example, careful not to jostle Enja. “Ingrid?”

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, and Sylvain stares at her openly. He can count the number of times Ingrid has apologized about anything to him on one hand. “I just…," she trails off, shakes her head, and then with a more steady voice continues. "I’m meeting with my father before the end of the month. An official meeting, of course."

 _Ah_. It explains her formal attire, the shining armor complemented by Royal Blaiddyd Blue. It’s a declaration as much as it is a form of protection. _Ingrid isn’t afraid,_ he realizes. Not of her father. But she doesn’t want to see him either. 

Sylvain looks at his little girl, and imagines seeing the same look of reluctance in her eyes. A heavy stone settles in his stomach. He doesn’t want that look to be centered on him ever, not by his daughter. It’s a new world, he reminds himself fiercely. But the old one isn’t dead and buried yet.

“I’ll go with you,” he promises Ingrid without a shred of doubt.

Ingrid shakes her head violently. “That’s not why I came. I can do it alone.”

She’s shaking, either from anticipation, dread or exhaustion. Overworked, most likely, because she has never settled for mediocrity in anything in her life. Now that she has achieved her dream of knighthood at last, that hasn’t changed from the looks of it.

“Ingrid, look at me,” Sylvain says, and leans towards her. Pulls Enja against his chest with one arm so he can wrap the other around Ingrid’s shoulders like the old days. “You don’t have to do this alone. We’re all in this together. I promised to follow you to the end of the earth and back again with only mild complaining years ago. I may be a scoundrel, but I do try to keep my promises to my friends.”

Ingrid stares into his eyes hopelessly. “I’m a knight,” she pleads.

Sylvain blinks once, twice. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“There are vows. Codes of conduct,” she whispers, but her eyes are blazing. There is something he is missing here. 

“Rules are meant to be broken,” he tries to reply playfully, a bit like his old self. 

Ingrid swallows visibly. Her eyes flicker to his lips, and then back. They’re very close, Sylvain realizes all at once, and from here it is obvious to him that she’s hungry. Positively starving, but not for food. 

Sylvain gulps. He has seen that look a thousand times, and yet he knows he must be mistaken because this is _Ingrid_. But some habits die hard, and like gravity, Sylvain bows down, closer and closer, until they are only a breath apart.

“ _Don’t_ , Sylvain,” Ingrid warns him, but don’t _what_? Sylvain feels a little drunk. He can’t stop doing something if he doesn’t even know what it is he is doing in the first place.

The world narrows down to the two of them, and for a brief moment, their skin touches. The world stops turning for a moment, and all sound vanishes. All that remains is him and her, his lips on hers. 

Then, like thunder on a clear day, Enja cries loudly, unhappy with being squished. 

They jump apart, breathing heavily and sweating despite the cold. Ingrid scrambles backward until she nearly trips over a stray toy bear, her hands pressed against her mouth.

“Ingrid?” Sylvain asks breathlessly, holding on to Enja like a lifeline. The room is spinning, and nothing makes sense.

Ingrid shakes her head, and all but crawls to the door. “Thank you for providing me shelter tonight. I’ll be out of your hair before you know it,” she speaks rapidly, looking mortified.

Before Sylvain can stop her, she has run out of the room. 

“What the hell just happened…?” He wonders out loud. Sylvain has half a mind to run after her, but Enja is wailing, demanding milk. She’s a hungry baby, and as much as he needs answers, it will have to wait. Enja is his first priority.

He touches his lips as soon as he has handed his daughter to the wet nurse. They’re not bruised, damaged, or bleeding. Not different at all, and yet Sylvain feels the phantom press of Ingrid’s thin, chapped lips scorch against his own until long after he has settled down for bed that night.

**XXX**

“You didn’t have to come,” Ingrid tells him the next morning. She’s traveling by horse rather than by pegasus, mostly because her own is tired after making the treacherous trek from Fhirdiad to Gautier in less than a week, and Gautier horses are the fastest in the known lands. 

He caught her at dawn in the stables, because despite the past few years spent apart, he still knows her better than himself. 

“I know,” Sylvain says, trying to still his rapidly beating heart. “But I will anyway.”

Ingrid nods, and doesn’t tell him to go home again. They travel mostly in silence, because every time Sylvain opens his mouth to fill it with pretty, meaningless words, he can’t help but remember what else they did with their lips yesterday. It might have been a kiss - Oh Goddess preserve him, it might have been a kiss! With Ingrid. _Ingrid_! - and Sylvain doesn’t know what to do if it was.

So instead he thinks of Enja. Safely cradled in her mother’s protective arms. _Probably wailing for him,_ he thinks with an equal measure of dread and fondness. She’s a daddy’s girl already, and he loves it. 

Felix isn’t at Castle Fraldarius when they pass through his territory - shocker there, truly - but the steward knows them both well enough to allow them to graciously spend a night after they promise to bully His Grace into returning home sometime soon. It’s a whole different kind of haunted house, but the old steward has been around before Felix was born, and is more than willing to start the conversation during dinner by recounting the many embarrassing things the current Duke Fraldarius did as a child. They even talk about Glenn, a subject Sylvain usually doesn’t dare to dive into with any of his friends. But maybe that was a mistake, because by the end of the night Ingrid is laughing through her tears as she recalls something idiotic Glenn once said to her. Sylvain leaves flowers on his empty grave as a thank you, and spends a few moments talking to his tombstone. He feels a bit awkward, talking to Glenn about Sreng, but a lot less when he speaks about Enja. She is his pride and joy after all. He even talks about Ingrid, although he doesn't tell him about the maybe-kiss. Even now, Ingrid still remains Glenn's betrothed in a way. Untouchable. 

The ghosts have never talked to him like they speak to Dimitri, but he thinks Glenn would be proud of what they achieved, even if they’re not done yet.

They continue their journey the next day, and Sylvain feels a little less weighed down by the past, but a little bit more homesick instead. 

Ingrid and Sylvain talk a little bit more after leaving Fraldarius, almost like they learned how to again. Sylvain talks nearly exclusively about Enja, her milestones and her beautiful smile. Ingrid looks at him fondly whenever he starts ranting, but he can’t help: it is the only thing he can do to make him miss his daughter any less. The temptation to turn around and make his horse run as fast as its legs can carry them is still great, but every time he sees Ingrid’s stubborn yet anxious eyes, he knows that he’s doing the right thing. The uninterrupted nights of sleep spent in the fresh air are only a side benefit, but one Sylvain didn’t realize he needed until they cross the border of Fraldarius into Galatea.

Count Galatea welcomes Sylvain first into his castle, and only then his daughter. Ingrid doesn’t budge an inch, and promptly delivers him a letter, supposedly of such grave importance that it could only be delivered by the King’s finest knight herself. It’s bullshit, of course, but Sylvain is proud of Dimitri all the same. It might be an obvious scheme, but he’s learning. 

So instead, Sylvain does his part and puts his silver tongue to good use. It took him three years to charm Sreng into peace. It takes him less than three days of gushing about how much he loves his daughter and how proud he is of her, before the stubborn Count discreetly asks for a private audience with the lady knight. 

Sylvain heads out and flirts with the old cook for old times' sake while father and daughter reconnect behind closed doors. It’s none of his business. His job starts when they’re done, and Ingrid flees into his waiting arms the second she sees him, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

“Was it good?” Sylvain asks carefully, his hand cupping the back of her head, weaving through her hair comfortingly. 

“No,” Ingrid whispers into his chest. “But it was necessary.”

He thinks back to his own father, dying a little bit more every day. Sylvain hasn’t gone to see him in months and often forgets about him for weeks. They haven’t really spoken to each other in years, not since Miklan. Not much before Miklan either, if he’s being honest. But he has a child of his own now, and he can look at his old man with the eyes of a father instead of a son. His gaze is more forgiving of his faults, but more painful for all they wasted, too.

Sylvain swallows the bile in his throat. “You’re so strong,” he tells her, and wraps his arms around her like he did after a particularly nasty battle.

Ingrid doesn’t answer verbally, but there is no mistaking the way she shakes her head back and forth against his chest, muttering things he can’t quite make out. They stay like that for a long time, while Ingrid pretends not to cry, and Sylvain pretends his heart isn’t playing an accelerated marching song in his chest.

They leave the next day, but Ingrid and her father shake hands before they go. _It’s progress,_ Sylvain thinks to himself as he saddles his horse back up again. Baby steps. He can’t wait to see his own daughter again.

**XXX**

They don’t talk about the incident in Gautier, but when they part ways Ingrid hugs him a little bit longer than she usually would. Time stops for a moment when she does, but he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t say a word.

“Thank you,” she says curtly when they pull apart, the wind blowing through a few loose strands of hair. “I promise to write as much as my schedule allows.”

“I will try to read your letters, if I can find them in the pile of other, boring papers,” Sylvain jokes back, winking for old times sake. 

Ingrid looks irritated in an almost nostalgic way. “You shouldn’t slack on your duties.”

“I’m not,” Sylvain lies blatantly, and Ingrid doesn’t fall for it one bit.

“See that you don’t,” she warns him. “I _will_ find out.”

 _And then what?_ Sylvain almost asks, but he keeps the words from tumbling out. He isn’t prepared to deal with the answer, not when things are finally alright between them again. 

“Give my love--” Sylvain’s heart skips a beat, painfully. “--to Enja. She is truly the sweetest child I have ever seen. Nothing like you."

“She is. I will,” Sylvain promises earnestly, his hands itching and his lips suddenly dry.

Ingrid stares at him for a second too long, and then mounts her horse and rides off until the curve of the road steals her from his vision.

Sylvain forces himself to look away and thinks about all the things he wants to say to his father. Enja hasn’t been tested for a Crest yet, and Sylvain will keep it that way for as long as he can. But now that he is a father himself, he can’t imagine turning away his child even if she doesn’t have his Crest.

 _‘How did you do it?’_ he wants to ask. _‘What did it cost to cut Miklan out of your house, out of your heart? Was he ever in there? And was it worth it?’_

He never gets the chance. When he returns to Gautier Castle four days later with an inkling of how he is going to make his father talk, the outer walls are draped with black. The steward meets him in the courtyard and bows deeply, a sad smile on his face. 

“The Margrave is dead, long live the Margrave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THREE TIMES IN A ROW ABBY, ENJOY THIS BEHEMOTH BECAUSE IT IS (probably) THE LAST FIC I'M WRITING FOR YOU THIS YEAR. I played too much persona 4 while writing this, so let's get into Sylvain's very complicated relationship with his family, crest and death. As prompted, Sylgrid is endgame, but Sylvain has to get through some issues about his self-worth and women first that were never truly solved in canon. Get ready for suffering sandwiched between mutual pining and cute dad!Vain moments. On the upside though, this fic has the happiest ending I have probably ever written. 
> 
> In case anyone is wondering, Enkhjargal is Mongolian for peace blessing. I loosely based Sreng on Mongolian culture since I am always a slut for worldbuilding. 
> 
> Next chapter: The Death Card, drawn in reverse, can be interpreted as stagnation and the inability to move or change. Sylvain tries to make things right and instead digs himself even deeper. Please let me know what you thought!


	2. Death, Reversed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sylvain ruins his relationships one by one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the beta Ari 😍

_The Death Card, drawn in reverse, can be interpreted as stagnation and the inability to move or change._

* * *

The funeral is a quiet affair. Many of his father’s old friends had died during the war, either by fighting on their side or turning traitor and dying for it. Ingrid’s father is one of the few men he recognizes. The other is Dimitri, who has seen far too many funerals in his life. 

Sylvain considered making sure his messenger with the news of his father’s death would inexplicably be delayed, but then decided against it. That’s something Sylvain would have done for Dimitri. But he wasn’t Sylvain when he wrote that letter: he was Margrave Gautier, and he addressed his letter to the King of Fodlan.

And so Dimitri is here with a relatively small entourage, reciting funeral prayers he knows by heart and looking miserable in a practiced, solemn way. Sylvain hates it, but hate is better than _this_. It would be better to feel nothing at all, and he almost manages it too. He doesn’t falter during his eulogy, shows the respectable amount of grief during the ceremony, and accepts the condolences offered afterward with grace, all without feeling a single thing. 

Not a single thing, right up until the moment he has to close the coffin, and he gets one last look at his father’s face. _The last,_ echoes through his mind, _the very last he’ll ever get!_ His father wasn’t that old, barely twice Sylvain’s age. In death, he looks younger, less stern, and suddenly a memory long repressed returns to Sylvain.

His father and Miklan, on a sunny day in Garland Moon. It had been cold, but Sylvain didn't feel it when he rode on his father’s horse, safely tucked against his father. He doesn’t remember what they talked about, but he does remember his father’s hearty laugh when Miklan made a somewhat crude joke. He remembers Miklan’s smile, unscarred and unblemished, after he taught Sylvain how to make a garland out of the flowers that bloomed on the hills of Western Gautier territory. And finally, he remembers his mother’s smile, polite yet radiant, when she accepted it.

A shiver travels through his body, and he chokes on a sob. Why did they fall so far? They were happy once, if only for a little while. He looks at Enja, sleeping peacefully in his wife’s arms, and his anger turns to fear instead. What if his own happiness with her is only fleeting as well? What if he turns into the man lying in front of him? What if he is already on that track, and there is no turning back?

Sylvain closes the casket with shaking hands and returns to his seat in the chapel without betraying a single thought. He doesn’t hear a word of the rest of the ceremony, not until his father’s coffin is buried deep underneath the freezing earth of the land he lived and died protecting.

Sylvain only wakes up after all the other guests have left, and it's just him and the headstone. 

"How...." His mouth feels dry, like he hasn't spoken in years. "Did you ever...?" He never finishes his sentence. Too much of a coward, even now. The headstone doesn't answer, and Sylvain doesn't know whether or not that is a blessing or a curse. 

**XXX**

Dimitri, like most of his friends, is uncomfortable yet extremely pleased to hold Sylvain’s child. It took no small amount of sweet-talking to cajole him into holding her - like he clearly wanted since day one - but now that he has finally succeeded, Sylvain is more than pleased with himself. The only job well done since succeeding his father. The piles of paperwork rots on his desk. 

“She is a treasure,” Dimitri marvels out loud, stars in his eyes. 

“Any plans on making one of your own anytime soon?” 

It’s always fun to shock Dimitri like this, and Sylvain takes extreme pleasure in the way he stiffens like a statue. “ _Sylvain_!”

“What? Not like it isn’t on everyone’s mind,” he counters with an award-winning smile.

Dimitri sighs, playing with a curly lock of Enja’s hair while she herself tries to grab his hand. “I am aware. But the restoration efforts have been draining enough as it is, leaving me little time to find a spouse.” He hesitates on the last word a second too long. 

“A queen could help you lighten the load, so to speak. Or have you forgotten my lessons on how to woo a lady after all those years?”

“How could I ever?” Dimitri says sarcastically before looking at him more seriously. “Is that how you manage it? Delegating duties to your wife?”

Sylvain’s laugh is dry and forced. He hasn’t managed anything at all ever since he achieved his life’s goal of brokering peace with Sreng, but he’s not telling his king about that. “Something like that. My wife can’t read our language, although she takes care of correspondence with Sreng most days since, _apparently_ , my grammar needs work.”

It occurs to him that he doesn’t really know what else she does to fill her days, except visit their daughter and occasionally warm his bed. He resolves to do better, like he has done many times in the past but never actually followed up on. 

“Your wife sounds like an intelligent woman,” Dimitri comments.

Sylvain laughs, but it sounds broken, even to him. “She is.” _Probably._ It is not like they ever talked long enough for Sylvain to figure out. “I wouldn’t know what to do without her," he lies.

Dimitri nods, a mysterious look in his one remaining eye. “I understand,” he says, which could mean anything really. Sylvain himself rarely understands what comes out of his own mouth most of the time anymore. It's all paper-thin lies, but he's got a crest and a title to boot nowadays, so it is enough. 

Sylvain clears his throat. “Regardless, you deserve to be happy, don’t you think? You’ve always been a romantic, deep down.”

“I would hardly call myself a romantic.”

Sylvain snorts. “I remember you spending hours and hours together with Ingrid, bent over some raunchy romance novel that you were in retrospect too young to read.”

Dimitri blushes bright red. “It was about courtly love! The chivalric ideal!”

“That’s not what Glenn told me afterward when we got scolded for allowing you to read it in the first place. _‘Stop corrupting the young prince!’_ Man, Rodrigue could really be scary when he wanted to be. That’s where Felix got it from, I guess.”

The moment the words tumble out of his mouth, he regrets them. Invoking the names of the dead around his childhood friends is a surefire way to sour the mood. 

Or so he thought, at least. The cackle that escapes Dimitri is almost childish, in an ugly but profoundly genuine way. _It’s good to hear him laugh,_ Sylvain thinks, but he doesn’t laugh along. His own smile is frozen on his face, suddenly uncomfortable, because next to the real thing a fraud can be easily spotted.

And Dimitri has never been as blind as he has led people to believe. “I miss those times when it was just the five of us,” he says kindly, his one blue eye never letting go of Sylvain’s. It feels like a hostage situation. “You should come to the capital sometime soon. It would do you well.”

Sylvain's heartbeat speeds up painfully. “I have a sworn duty to guard the border, Your Majesty. _Your_ border.”

Dimitri sighs. “We are at peace, Sylvain.”

“At peace for now,” Sylvain corrects him with a wry smile, and he hears his father's voice echo the same words in his mind. “Besides, I have duties here. To my child. My wife. My territory. I’m not running away anymore.”

Dimitri looks at him with unconcealed doubt in his eye. “That is good to hear,” he says neutrally.

Sylvain bites his lip. Margrave Gautier is in no position to question the King of Fodlan. But Enja, ever on his side, is perfectly okay with grabbing a lock of Dimitri’s hair and pulling at it with all of her might.

“Au!” Dimitri exclaims, although more in shock than actual pain. “She is surprisingly strong!”

Sylvain takes pity on both of them, and wrestles the lock of hair out of Enja’s hand before she gives the king a permanent bald spot. He doesn’t return her to him though and instead clutches her to his chest like a lifeline. 

"She is," Sylvain says quickly. "So, back on the topic of your future offspring..."

He has always been an expert at derailing any conversation, and three years of constant diplomacy in Sreng have made him even better at deflecting than he already was. Dimitri, predictably, becomes too flustered to interrogate him any further. 

He leaves the next day with his knights in tow. Neither Ingrid nor Felix are among them, but Sylvain doesn’t expect them to be. They have lives of their own, life-long dreams to fulfill. They're useful. Necessary. 

And so, the new Margrave Gautier watches the King of Fodlan disappear into the mist from the top of his tower, where he will remain. 

**XXX**

Enja grows, and Sylvain is there to hold her hand. He teaches her how to crawl by example, and before long his daughter is waddling behind him on her own to feet, screeching words of her own creation, each laced with joy and accomplishment.

Every victory she achieves feels like one of his own, and those days spent together are great. But at night, when his duties are done and his estate is managed, the loneliness returns, and the walls start closing in. 

To make things worse, his wife is pregnant again. He’s honestly astounded, considering how little time they spend together, but he doesn’t doubt her fidelity, and she doesn’t question his.

_(He wonders if she knows about that time he kissed a knight in the stables. He didn’t even like her, she just reminded him of someone he missed, and then before he knew it he had his hands around her waist, and his mind in indecent places. There was no wine to blame it on this time, only a deep-seated loneliness that aches and hungers. Still, Sylvain hated himself more than ever afterward.)_

Sometimes, he stares out of his window for hours, losing track of time. His eyesight has never been good, but it deteriorates a little with every month spent locked inside. Five years ago, he could make out the leaves on the trees on the edge of his courtyard; now, they are just a blur of lighter and darker greens, sometimes topped with cotton candy snow he never gets to taste. Ten years ago, he slept under the stars every night and hated every second of it. War was torture, and he’s glad it’s over. But this - sitting in his father’s office day after day - is its own kind of hell. 

But he's alive, he reminds himself bitterly. He's alive while so many are dead. He has no right to regrets, no room for complaints. He knows all of that, and yet he can't tear his gaze away. 

The wind sweeps through the leaves, and even he can see them sway along. But for how much longer? And what else will wither along with time?

**XXX**

Felix comes barging a few months before Enja’s second birthday like he owns the place. Sylvain allows him his pretense of aloofness for all of five minutes before he whispers in Enja’s ear that ‘Uncle Felix’ is hiding sweets in his pockets, and then watches as his little girl pesters him for hours until he promises to buy her sweets. 

At night they share a glass of wine. It’s his father’s old collection, and Sylvain remembers his strict orders to only open it when the King visited. Naturally, Sylvain made sure to hand all of it over to the servants. Dimitri doesn’t drink anyway.

“What brings you here to sunny Gautier, the weather?” Sylvain jokes after the silence between them has gone from comfortable to awkward to tense.

Felix fumbles for a second and hesitates, which is such an unusual sight that Sylvain almost chokes on his wine. It seems that old dogs can learn new tricks. “What did you say to Dimitri when he visited you?”

“It was a while ago; I can’t entirely recall,” Sylvain lies out of habit. It's been eight months. Not like he was counting or anything. 

Felix looks right through him. “You’re not that old.” And wow, when he furrows his brow like that, he looks _exactly_ like Rodrigue did that time he found Sylvain half-naked and more than half-drunk on his doorstep.

Sylvain shrugs. “We’re all getting old.”

For a tense moment, Felix says nothing. Then: “I’m older than Glenn ever got to be.”

_Ah_ , Sylvain thinks. There it is. “Wasn’t his birthday somewhere this month?”

“It’s next week,” Felix says quickly, like it is merely an idle recollection. The way his eyes have sunken into his skull tells a different story. “It’s… in the past. Not important anyway.”

Miklan’s birthday was five weeks ago, and the anniversary of his father’s death is in a few months. Sylvain actively tries to forget the dates, and never talks to anyone about them. But Glenn and Miklan were very different brothers, even if Rodrigue and his own father had plenty in common.

They're all dead now though, Sylvain thinks, his hands shaking a little until he downs his entire glass of wine.

He looks at Felix. Now that his hair is longer, there is a slight wave to it, like Rodrigue’s. He doesn’t doubt that his old friend has realized it, just like Sylvain knows better than to remark upon it. There is something pitiful in the way they fill their father’s shoes, despite spending a childhood resenting those very same shoes, albeit in completely different ways.

Sylvain pours himself another glass, and keeps his lips busy with drinking. If he doesn't, he might say something that will set Felix off. It's been nearly a year since they saw each other, and Sylvain is so tired of fighting. He's so tired all the time.

But Felix isn't any better than this. "Spit it out," he hisses. "I know you want to say something."

“Ah, I remember now,” Sylvain says theatrically. “I talked with Dimitri about finding a wife.”

It does not have the expected response, which is too bad, because a flustered Felix is a murderous Felix, but also more lively than whatever is sitting in front of him. 

But Felix doesn't holler at him. Instead, Duke Fraldarius looks away and nods solemnly. “I see.”

“Don’t tell me you came all the way over to ask me that?”

Felix shakes his head. “No. But he’s been--” he cuts himself off. “He asked me… for my approval.”

Sylvain nearly falls out of his chair, his jaw all but hitting the ground. “For his intended?”

Felix looks away pointedly, the set of his shoulders betraying far more than his gruff tone. “Something like that.”

“Since when are _you_ the authority on love?” Sylvain asks incredulously, not caring if he sounds cruel. Felix is eternally single, and Sylvain doubts that will change anytime soon. Maybe if Dorothea had been alive, she could have warmed his frozen heart, but Sylvain killed and then buried her himself. She’s not coming back anywhere but in his nightmares.

“I’m not,” Felix admits, twisting his hands into fists, and then unclenching them again. “That’s why I came to you. To ask you what I should tell him.”

The light of the fireplace flickers over his features, and it occurs to Sylvain that there is something Felix isn’t telling him. A memory flashes through his mind: Felix, age seven, his cheeks rosy from crying. The only thing that flowed more plentiful than his tears were his words, because he would always come to Sylvain when he was fighting with Dimitri. Another memory, eight years later, after the Western Rebellion. That time he wasn't crying, but he might as well have been. Sylvain always could read him like an open book. 

He blinks, and the memory is gone, and so is that boy that depended on him. A man takes his place, accomplished and independent. Sylvain should feel proud, but instead he feels bereft. Felix hasn't shown up for almost a year. He doesn't need Sylvain anymore, except for this little thing.

Sylvain swallows and chooses his words carefully. “A wife would make his life easier. Take some strain off his back, give him some time to rest his feet. The Goddess knows he deserves it after everything he went through. Don’t you think?”

“A good assistant could do that too,” Felix says petulantly, wrinkling his nose.

Okay, so maybe that kid isn't entirely gone yet. Sylvain rolls his eyes. “I’m not saying you’re doing a bad job, Felix. But we’re all getting older, and the way the monarchy works is that titles pass down from father to son. We’re building something great here, but unless Dimitri ensures that he has an heir, it could all be for naught. Can you even imagine the diplomatic mess - if not war! - we would have on our hands if Dimitri died tomorrow without a successor?”

Felix’s eyes widen. “He won’t.”

“Of course he won’t,” Sylvain soothes. “But we don’t know that for sure, do we? There will never be true peace until he has an heir, and for that to happen, he needs to marry.”

“What does marriage have to do anything with that?” Felix says with a hint of irritation in his voice. “I named my cousin my heir, so that issue is taken care of.”

“Annaliese?” Sylvain remembers a timid girl, with a terrible stutter and a love for books. Granting her a Duchy is not doing her a favor, but she is Felix’s uncle’s eldest surviving child.

Felix shakes his head. “No, Beatrix.”

It takes Sylvain a few moments to remember Felix’s youngest cousin, a girl no older than fourteen, too young for Sylvain to have flirted with. He has standards, even if they are low. 

There is one thing he remembers though: “She doesn’t have a crest.”

Felix nods. “Indeed. She _does_ however have a good head on her shoulders, and perhaps an even better swordarm. I’ve been supervising her training myself.” He adds the last part with a hint of pride glittering in his eyes Sylvain never expected to see there. 

“But she doesn’t have a crest,” Sylvain repeats, and old numbness settling in his chest.

Felix looks at him with something akin to disappointment. “Neither does Enja, right?”

“I… I never had her tested,” Sylvain admits. 

He doesn’t have to explain why. Sometimes he hates the fact that every conversation they have is weighted down by a history older than the ancient wine they’re drinking right now, but there are benefits to knowing your friends better than you know yourself.

“What about the Lance of Ruin?” Felix asks with a surprising amount of tact.

“We’re at peace with Sreng. Might as well return the damn thing to the church.”

“A waste of a good weapon.”

“I’d rather waste a weapon than use it ever again,” Sylvain says with a wry smile on his lips, feeling a little cruel. “That’s the difference between me and you, Felix. I can enjoy peace for what it’s worth. Put the dogs of war to rest.”

For a second, Felix doesn’t say anything. In the past, he would have bitten Sylvain’s head off for such a comment, but Sylvain supposes he’s used to dealing with worse fools.

When Felix speaks, every word is as sharp as the swords he never takes off his belt. “No, that’s not it,” he says slowly. “The difference between you and me is that I have learned to forgive myself. I’m not afraid to be happy anymore.”

“I am happy,” Sylvain exclaims reflexively. “I _am_!” he repeats when Felix raises his eyebrow questioningly. This time he says it louder, and he is unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Look at Enja, at her future sibling! The war is over, and my family is dead! What else could I want?” He says cynically.

The look Felix spares him does not contain a shred of pity. “Why are you asking me?”

He opens his mouth to retort, but the words never come to him, because Sylvain doesn’t have an answer to that. He doesn’t have an answer the next morning either, or when Felix leaves later that week. He never finds out exactly why he visited. Most of the time, he can’t wait for a visit from any of his childhood friends, but this time, Sylvain is happy to see Felix leave. 

**XXX**

Sylvain rarely sleeps from dusk till dawn. His days are long and empty, and sometimes he wakes up from his usual afternoon nap on top of his paperwork to find his wife staring at him through the open door of office. She doesn't come in or say anything, but she doesn't look happy, either.

Sylvain knows he should be ecstatic at seeing her rounded belly. He loves Enja more than anything in the world, and he knows he will love his next child too. He will. He has to. What else is he good for?

But the days drag on and on, flowing into each other like the outdated curtains meshed with the carpet and the wallpaper until one is indistinguishable from the other. His nightmares are at least unique every night. He always had a mind for theatrics, Dorothea used to say.

**XXX**

Ingrid’s letters arrive on the fifth day of every month like clockwork. It’s a routine Sylvain clings to, but that doesn’t mean he feels any less excited every time he cuts the seal open and greedily unfolds the paper from the envelope.

Enja bounces on his lap. “Read!” she exclaims loudly, making grabby hands for the parchment.

“Patience sweetheart.” Sylvain carefully keeps the letter out of her range but otherwise indulges her. 

> _“Dear Sylvain,_
> 
> _The weather in northern Hrym is only marginally better than the worst summer heat Galatea has ever seen, and it is only early spring. Nevertheless, I will persevere. The less said about the uprising, the better. It is taken care of, but the local nobles are so incompetent, I am this close to flying back to His Majesty and demanding he puts someone with common sense in charge. It doesn’t seem like I will be able to come home anytime soon.”_

Sylvain’s heart skips a beat, and he reads the word again. _‘Home.’_ It's easily the highlight of his week. 

> _“I am glad to hear Enja had a nice birthday and enjoyed my gift! Reading your account of her days makes the long nights alone a little bit less lonely. Although, I can’t imagine her already running around on her own! She truly is the most delightful child, and every night I pray that your second child follows in her footsteps instead of yours, although it would serve you well! I joke, of course. Give Enja all my love until we meet again.”_

Enja perks up when she hears her name and happily starts crooning: “Ingry!” Sylvain presses a kiss to her chubby cheek to hide his own smile.

> _“Thank you for your gift. My pegasus has never looked better once I started using the brush you send me, despite her age. She is becoming an old lady, and sooner rather than later I should think of retiring her. Sometimes, I wonder if I shouldn’t just follow her example.”_

The next part is unreadable. Whatever Ingrid originally entrusted to paper, she must have regretted it later because the next four sentences are completely crossed out. Sylvain frowns deeply, and Enja turns around to look at him when he doesn’t continue reading.

She puts her chubby hand on his cheek, and cocks her head a little, looking sad. “Where pain?” 

Sylvain shakes his head and forces himself to smile. “I’m not hurt, little princess.” 

“Where pain?” Enja repeats, and tries to kiss his stubbly cheek like he does whenever she is hurt. 

Sylvain swallows deeply, before lifting his voice to the brightest and happiest he can manage. “The pain is gone! Did Auntie Mercedes teach you that? Because that was the best Heal spell I’ve ever seen!”

Enja giggles brightly, and kisses him again. 

Sylvain's heart warms, but it’s hard to kill the feeling of dread that has taken root in his gut. Ingrid, twice as stubborn as a bull and as determined, too. _Ingrid_ , who gave up everything she ever had in order to achieve her lifelong dream. _That_ Ingrid, considering retiring at the age of thirty-one?

He reads the rest of the letter, but there are only fancy words, well wishes, and goodbyes. Nothing to make him feel that something is not terribly, terribly wrong.

The thought stays with him for hours, and doesn’t fade after a night’s sleep or what can pass for it nowadays. He goes about his day, does the bare minimum of his duties, takes care of his daughter, and worries. At night, after everyone has gone to bed, he tries to write a letter back to Ingrid, but the blank page in front of him stares back, forever empty.

Outside, the wind howls. Inside, Sylvain tries to find a gentle way to ask: “Are you okay?” To say: “I don’t think I am.” To finally admit: “You are the strongest person I know. If you break down, I don’t think I can keep going.”

He never finds the words, and his quill remains dry. Instead, a different kind of madness fills his bones, one that makes him unable to sit down for more than a minute. 

That morning, he packs light, kisses a sleeping Enja goodbye, and tells the old steward he is settling some personal business. Then, before the first rays of morning light truly settle on the crooked path that leads south, he saddles up a pale horse and rides south, the Lance of Ruin in his hand.

**XXX**

It takes three weeks of constant riding to find Ingrid, since she never specified exactly where she was in Hrym. She falls into his arms when she sees him, and it is easy to forget the year they haven’t seen each other when they’re pressed chest to chest. 

“You cut your hair again,” Sylvain remarks when they have finally broken apart. ‘Cut’ is a kind observation. It looks like she took a sword to it one day without the use of a mirror but with a lot of anger. He takes a step back and truly takes her in. Ingrid looks a little thinner than he would have liked, and her armor is dirtier than he has ever seen her wear it outside of battle. The circles underneath her eyes are deep and betray a thousand things her letters only hinted at.

_I was right,_ Sylvain thinks vindictively. _She needs me._

“It’s good to see you, Sylvain,” Ingrid says, a small smile on her face. “Did His Majesty send you?”

“No,” Sylvain admits, still smiling. “I came of my own volition.”

Ingrid’s brow furrows. “Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does,” Ingrid insists.

Instead of answering, Sylvain takes the reins of his horse and leads it to the nearest stable. The poor beast looks a little paler and thinner than when he rode out, so he pays the stable master extra to ensure that it gets the best care this backwater town in Hrym can provide. 

It’s the first time has set foot outside his territory since he returned from Sreng, and it makes him feel a little bit wild inside. So instead of talking to Ingrid Sylvain introduces himself to as many people as he can, looking for a good time.

He is Margrave Gautier. Or perhaps more impressively, one of the most decorated generals of the Fodlan Unification War. In this backwater town, that means something, and the local nobility is more than happy to provide food and shelter for him in return for his stories. 

Sylvain has always been good with words, especially if they are only adjacent to the truth. Ingrid never strays from his side, easily falling into place next to him as if they’re still at war, and the Professor - now Archbishop - has sent them forward to scout out the road. It’s easy to ignore her disapproving frown. He has years of practice, after all.

_(Just like she has years of practice seeing right through his facade.)_

Euphoria bubbles underneath his skin, making him itchy and jumpy and prone to smiling. It’s a strange, dangerous feeling he can’t explain or trace, except it lights up every time he looks at Ingrid, or hears her voice, picks up her scent in the wind.

He rides the high as long as he can, but it crashes down sooner rather than later.

“Sylvain,” Ingrid asks again as soon as they are alone. “Why are you here? Is everything okay in Gautier? With Sreng? Did... did something happen to Enja?”

Sylvain sits on her bed in the barracks. As the commander of this division, she had been granted a private room, but they might as well not have bothered. Ingrid keeps her room as spartan and impersonal as an empty box, even though she had been stationed here for over a year. 

“Don’t worry your pretty head, Ingry,” he says and smooths out the blankets. “Enja is fine. Everything is _fine_.” 

Ingrid looks unconvinced. “And your second child? Isn’t your wife due any moment now?”

“Not yet.” Or so Sylvain thinks. His wife is a private person, and they rarely talk about matters that aren’t directly related to Enja or Sreng. Whenever he inquires about their second child, she insists they are fine. But she’s been pregnant for a while now. Maybe Ingrid is right.

“Why are you here?” Ingrid repeats, her hands folded in front of her chest. She is the very picture of stubbornness, and Sylvain knows there is no escaping her.

“For you,” he admits.

Her eyes go wide in a way that feels almost like a stab through the chest. 

“For _me_?”

“Is that so hard to believe?” Ingrid nods, unashamed. “You wound me Ingrid!” It’s not entirely a lie, even if his theatrical tone implies differently.

Ingrid sighs deeply and massages her temples. “Sylvain, you haven’t left Gautier in years, to the point that people talk about it. You probably haven’t left since you helped me out almost two years ago when I went to see my father, for which I am still grateful,” she adds quickly, flashing him a quick smile which he gratefully returns. “But suddenly you’re here, unannounced. Without Enja! How can you not think that wouldn’t worry me?”

Sylvain raises to his feet and closes the distance between them. “I was worried about _you_. That’s why I’m here,” he says, his heart beating a little faster when Ingrid doesn’t shrink back, and they’re less than a few breaths apart. “Your letters… you sounded off. I had a hunch, I followed it. Saved my life more than once during the war, so I’m not about to distrust my gut instinct now.”

Ingrid visibly swallows. “I am _fine_ ,” she grits out defensively, almost as if he has insulted her.

“Are you?” Sylvain asks, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t look so great, Ingrid.”

Ingrid combs a hand through her butchered hair and looks away, but Sylvain sees the flash of insecurity before she covers it up. “I’m just getting old, Sylvain.” 

There are indeed a few more wrinkles on her face now then there had been the last time he saw her. She’s a tired mess, but she’s still _Ingrid_. His heart skips a beat. _Beautiful_.

“Not that old,” he says fondly, and brushes a haphazardly cut lock of golden hair behind her ear. It’s just as coarse as he remembered from his childhood.

Something is pulling him forward again. It’s a hunger he’s had for years, decades. An itch he has tried and failed to scratch a thousand times. Maybe with Ingrid it will be different, he thinks almost deliriously, and let’s gravity pull him closer into her orbit.

Ingrid’s lips part, but not in a way he is expecting. “Don’t ever tell Felix I said this but…” she says, and just like that the spell is broken. “But maybe he wasn’t... entirely wrong. This life… isn’t everything I thought it would be.”

Sylvain feels like someone is choking him while the earth shakes beneath his feet. “But… you get to go wherever you want? Everyone adores you! Whenever I ask about Lady Ingrid, I hear tales of glory and greatness. Your elite order of pegasus knights is the most renowned company in all of Fodlan!” 

“And I am proud of all I have achieved,” Ingrid says stubbornly.

“Then why do you look like you need to cry?”

Ingrid averts her eyes, but the evidence is still there, glistening in the faint light of the full moon. “The nights are long and lonely. The days drag on sometimes, one petty scrabble after another. I miss my father and my brothers. I haven’t seen Mercedes, Ashe, and Annette in ages, and I have yet to meet Byleth and Dedue’s twins. I miss His Majesty and Felix and their petty arguments for the sake of arguing. God, they’re so _stupid_. I miss them so much.” Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t cry. He hasn’t seen her cry since Glenn died. She’s the strongest person he knows.

But even titans falter under too much weight. “And I miss you and your little girl,” she admits, her voice breaking halfway through. Sylvain almost doesn’t hear it over the sound of his own heart breaking. “Everyone is growing up and starting families and doing great things. And here I am, up to my knees in the mud, listening to two barons who never saw a second of war play with people's lives.” Ingrid wraps her arms around herself. “Fighting, in a time of peace. And for _what?_ What would Dorothea think?”

Her question echoes through the small room. 

Something ugly blooms up in Sylvain’s chest, something he hasn’t allowed himself to feel or think for a long time. “At least you’re _useful_ ,” he says accusingly. “I achieved my lifelong dream at the age of thirty. What am I going to do now?”

Ingrid looks at him strangely. “You’re Margrave Gautier,” she says, as if that explains everything.

And it is at that moment that Sylvain realizes just how far they’ve grown apart. There is a canyon between their lives, and he’s no longer sure if their shared memories can bridge it.

“I’ve made myself obsolete. A Margrave is a title granted to a military commander, assigned to maintain the defense of one of the border provinces,” he explains, a cruel laugh bubbling up in his throat, along with a need to destroy people, or maybe just himself. “But we’re at peace, hopefully forever. What is the point of me, besides looking pretty, siring crest babies, and drinking away tax money?”

Ingrid's frown is an old companion of his, but it has been a while since it was this deep. “Governing your people, for one.”

Sylvain barks a laugh, only it doesn’t sound like a laugh at all. “My people govern themselves. They have for decades. All they ask of me is the safety to do so. And now, they don’t even need me for that.” The Srengi people, he has come to understand, are not always bound to obey contracts forged between mortals. But a promise to their Gods they will never break. For as long as Enja lives, there will be peace between Fodlan and Sreng.

Sylvain has done his job. Fought, killed, and created a new Gautier child to take over. If he would die right now, history would not write anything different about him than if he lived for another hundred years. 

Ingrid grabs his hand, neither gentle nor harsh, and it pulls him out of his thoughts. “Do you want me to pity you?” she seethes, looking him straight in the eyes, unflinching. “I don’t. You have a beautiful daughter. More freedom I ever had in my entire life or ever will! And you’ve always been brilliant. So get your head out of your ass, open your eyes, and do something with that bright mind of yours!” Then, more softly but all the rawer for it, she adds: “Don’t give up now. We’ve come too far for that.”

There is something she isn’t saying. Normally, Sylvain would wait for her, keep all the ugliness inside and smile. But oh, he’s so tired of smiling, and there is so much terrible acid within him, waiting to be spat out. It’s an old routine of his: if someone gets too close to hurting you, you hurt them back twice as much until they turn away.

And Sylvain has always been good with words. Words of honey, most often. But when the foulness of his soul rears its head, he can turn them into knives too, sharper than any blade.

“And what about you, Ingrid?” The words fall out, low and cruel. Sylvain smiles, full of teeth. “You tell me I’ve got my head stuck in my ass, but what about you?” he repeats, a little louder. “Why are you still here? One letter to Dimitri, and you’re back in Fhirdiad before the end of the month. You’re the best knight he has. There is no need for you to be here. So why are you here? Why are _you_ giving up?” 

Ingrid narrows her eyes, and her voice is chillier than the coldest night Sylvain has ever lived through. “I’m needed here. It is my duty.”

“No, you’re not. This is beneath you. You’re just afraid to admit that you’ve become just like your father: stubborn and set-in his ways,” Sylvain says, and a sick part of him - a part of him that wants to devour and hurt - laughs when he sees her visibly recoil at her words. “I think you’re just running away.”

“ _I’m_ turning into my father? Like you, you mean?” Ingrid hisses back, her hands balled into fists. “You even look like your father, you know? Dressed from head to toe in the finest armor money can buy, food aplenty in every home in your territory, a wife and child, the freedom to do whatever you want. You have everything, but you’re still unsatisfied. _Insatiable_.”

“And so we all become the people we hate the most: ourselves,” Sylvain hisses back viciously. 

“At least I am _trying_ to make a difference!” Ingrid shrieks, shaking with anger. “Do you want war that badly? Are the lives lost worth the feeling of being useful? Are you truly that disgusting?” 

And just like that, all anger drains from his body, leaving behind a cold, dead husk of a man. 

“Is that what you truly think of me?” Sylvain whispers brokenly, smiling still. He doesn’t know how to stop smiling anymore. 

Ingrid immediately calms down as well. She looks away, hugging her frame with trembling hands. “I don’t know what to think of you anymore,” she admits, pain evident in every word.

She’s close to tears. This is not their first fight - far from it - but it is the first time he has made her cry. 

_All you do is ruin things,_ Miklan’s voice echoes through his head. _If only you were never born, everything would be better. Just die already!_

He looks at Ingrid, his heart beating hard in his chest. So strong, yet so broken. Because that is what he does, all he has ever done. 

“Well, don’t let me interrupt your knightly dreams, then,” he hears himself say, but it comes from far away. 

“Sylvain,” Ingrid says slowly, and then she says something that sounds like an apology, but Sylvain doesn’t hear it. Every breath he takes is a labor, and Miklan’s cruel laugh coming from the top of the well he dropped Sylvain in tunes out any rational thought he might have had. All he knows is that he has to get out of here before he ruins everything - and everyone - he has ever cared about.

“Coming here was a mistake. I see that now,” he croaks out, his hand already on the doorknob. “I’ll be out of your hair as soon as my horse recovers. I won’t bother you again, Lady Knight. Have fun rolling in the mud.” The last words don't come out as cruel as he wants them to sound, but he prays they will suffice.

“SYLVAIN!” Ingrid cries after him.

He doesn’t turn around to hear her out, not this time. He doesn’t care about his dignity or reputation. He sprints into the hallway without a sense of direction. It’s like clawing his path out of a well while the water starts to rise. You don’t need to know where you’re going, you don't need to feel the pain of your bleeding fingernails or the despair in your heart. Nothing matters, as long as you’re getting out of here.

“Get back here! We’re not done talking!” Ingrid hollers after him, and he hears her footsteps, but he doesn’t look back. All he has to do is keep climbing, keep running, and the water can’t catch up with him.

The ghost of his brother laughs triumphantly. Sylvain runs, and never looks back. Ingrid is better off without him anyway.

**XXX**

When Sylvain returns to Gautier after two months of absence, Enja almost doesn’t recognize him. It might be the beard or his unkempt appearance, or the fact that he abandoned her on a whim in order to -- to do what, exactly? 

When she finally does recognize him, she starts crying so loudly she wakes up the entire castle. Sylvain embraces her stiffly, but only for a second. Miklan's taunting laugh echoes through his mind, but it's the image of Ingrid's tears that sticks. 

He kills a part of himself, bites the inside of his cheek, and pushes her back into the waiting arms of her governess. "Take care of her," he orders her stiffly, just like his father did when he was young. 

The agony of turning his back on her cries of _“Papa!”_ eclipses every wound he has ever had. It is the only thing that truly pierces through the numbness that has enveloped him on his way home. 

He almost falters and runs back to her to cradle her against his chest until she is soothed. Almost. The walls around him feel claustrophobic, but in a familiar sense: the secure knowledge he was born in this castle, and he will die here as well. The ghost of Miklan - or maybe his father? It’s been so long, he can hardly tell them apart anymore in the darkest corners of his mind - reminds him that he was lucky to be born at all. 

Every step away from Enja is like ramming a nail into his own coffin, but Sylvain holds the hammer firmly. This is who he is: Margrave Gautier, a man with a Crest, the wielder of the Lance of Ruin, a glorified studhorse. There is nothing more. The world does not need anything more.

His steward welcomes him home, looking old and tired. He informs Sylvain that in his absence, the shepherds in the north have paid their annual taxes, a church in the west burned to the ground, and fourteen women have given birth. Including his own.

“A healthy daughter, again. We have yet to test her for a Crest,” the old man informs him with a sparkle in his eye. “Would you like to see her?” 

A persistent need, or maybe just a selfish desire, claws at Sylvain’s chest. But the thorns have dug their way in too tight in the past two months, and he kills the warmth blossoming up in his chest with practiced ease. 

“No,” Sylvain says resolutely, sounding exactly like he remembers his father. “See to it she has a nursemaid assigned to her.” 

“But my lord--” 

Sylvain cuts him off with a single raise of his hand. “If that is all, I will be in my office.” 

He doesn’t wait for the man to reply, and turns around. When he walks into his office, a letter is waiting for him. He recognizes Ingrid’s handwriting on sight, although it looks less neat than usual. Almost as if the person who wrote it was in a hurry to get the words out.

Sylvain throws the envelope in the fire without opening it and watches the flames reduce it to ashes. Once it is nothing but dust, he breaks into his own wine cellar and opens the first bottle he can get his hands on. He gets drunker than he was on the night before his wedding, but this time, there is nobody to bring him to bed. He passes out on the cold floor, all alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I am once again reported for cyberbullying (lol), please let me say that this chapter is the low point of the fic. Okay, I'm ready for the pitchforks now, bring out your torches.
> 
> A lot of death symbolism in this chapter, I had a blast piecing it all together. I originally did a lot of research on Mongolian funeral rites, only to realize I didn't need them AT ALL. Still the saddest part of my research I didn't get to include... The general feeling of isolation and stagnation that is central to this chapter is a little inspired by my first year as a mother. I loved caring for my daughter, but sometimes it felt like all of my friends were out there getting degrees while I was stuck at home. Of course, they had their own shares of troubles, but it felt like life was passing on without me. Of course Sylvain is off wayyyy worse than I was, but I wanted to capture that sense of loneliness that I think a lot of people in their mid-twenties go through.
> 
> Next chapter: Death, Upright. The Death card signals that one major phase in your life is ending, and a new one is going to start. Sylvain experiences a divine intervention. 
> 
> Let me know what you think! 🥰


	3. Death, Upright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sylvain experiences a divine intervention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, beta'd by [Ari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arihime/pseuds/arihime). Thank you so much 🥰

_The Death card signals that one major phase in your life is ending, and a new one is going to start. You just need to close one door, so the new one will open. The past needs to be placed behind you, so you can focus your energy on what is ahead of you._

* * *

Life goes on as if nothing ever happened. Sylvain works from dawn till dusk: he reads almost every letter, meets every farmer that requires his help, trains every day in the cold until his legs are numb and his muscles are screaming, but his mind is finally empty.

It never works for long, but as long as he can’t think - can’t feel - he can be what he was always meant to be: a vessel for the Crest of Gautier. Before the end of the second month, people start talking about how he has suddenly become such an exemplary member of the nobility, diligent and sincere. They comment on how proud his father would have been to see his son finally step into his noble footsteps.

Sylvain smiles but doesn’t say a thing. If only they knew. He sleeps with a different woman every night, and he doesn’t feel a thing. He sees Enja and his new daughter once a week, and his wife even less. _This is what death feels like,_ Sylvain thinks one evening, drunk again. Alone again. Withering away a little bit every day, until everything blends together into a grey mass of nothing. When the Goddess comes to take your soul, it isn’t a punishment. It’s a mercy. 

He puts the bottle of wine to his lips, and drinks until he passes out, praying that the Goddess will bestow mercy upon him soon.

**XXX**

Byleth arrives a week later, this time without Dedue by her side.

“Archbishop,” Sylvain greets her, his voice level and his smile perfect.

His old professor does not beat around the bush. “I need your assistance.” 

Sylvain raises a single eyebrow. “I’m afraid I’m quite busy,” he says before she can explain herself. 

“With what?” 

“With managing my estate,” Sylvain counters smoothly, running his hands over a letter he has been trying and failing to write all day. He has a headache, and all he wants to do is go back to bed. His own handwriting is small and fuzzy, and Sylvain can barely read what he has written himself. “I’m sorry; I will have to turn down your request. Maybe next time, okay?” 

Byleth stares at him for a moment. She looks the same as she did five years ago. Aside from the dye job and weird eye color magic, she looks _exactly_ the same as she did when he first met her: ethereal, otherworldly, and all the more detached for it. 

“I’m not asking, then,” she says just as the silence between them is about to turn awkward. “I’m calling in a favor. I helped you to regain the Lance of Ruin all those years ago, and you said House Gautier owed me. I’m collecting that debt, here and now.” 

Sylvain grits his teeth. She’s not calling upon a favor from _him_ , but from House Gautier. The former he could refuse, but the latter? House Gautier is nothing without it’s Relic, without it’s Crest. 

_Clever woman,_ he thinks hatefully. 

“That’s unfair,” he says instead, still smiling.

“Life is unfair,” Byleth replies emotionlessly. “We leave at dawn.” 

**XXX**

Sylvain only informs his steward he is leaving. It’s the first time he has left the castle for more than a day since the incident in Hrym, and his horse is in poor shape, but Sylvain saddles him up anyway.

A bitter winter wind rips at Sylvain’s clothes and freezes his cheeks as he and Byleth slowly trod down the old, crooked road up north. They pass the Gautier family crypt, where his father and his mother rest. His brother’s corpse probably still rots in Conand Tower. Sylvain shouldn’t feel envious. He shouldn’t feel anything at all.

Byleth doesn’t talk much. She never has. Together, they hunt for game and make dinner, just like they used to do during the missions that took them away from the comforts of Garreg Mach. The snowy landscape around him is so vast, so empty. They ride for miles and miles and still don’t find anyone or anything.

“Why are we here?” Sylvain dares to ask on the fourth day of riding through the frozen landscape he calls his territory.

“You tell me,” Byleth says without looking at him.

If he didn’t know she had no sense of humor, he would have laughed. “You were the one that called me on this quest. This is _your_ favor.” 

“Sylvain,” Byleth says slowly, not unlike when she reprimanded him in class for trying to sneak a peek at her cleavage instead of paying attention. “You’re a smart guy. Let’s not pretend you haven’t figured it out yet.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

A black crow flies over their heads, and in the distance, dark clouds gather. _A storm,_ Sylvain thinks. _Or worse, a snowstorm. Certain death to an unprepared traveler._

“Did you know I was born at Garreg Mach?” Byleth says suddenly, interrupting his thoughts.

Sylvain shakes his head. “No. What does that have to do with anything?” 

“My mother died to save me. I didn’t understand why she would give up her life when I learned of her fate, but now that I am a mother myself, I do. I would have done the same,” she says, the smallest of smiles on her lips. “You understand that too, right? The willingness to sacrifice everything - your happiness, your future, even your own life - just to see your children prosper.” 

Sylvain swallows deeply, a hollow feeling in his chest. “Perhaps,” he says, voice carefully neutral.

"After she died, my father feared for my life. He had everything he ever wanted, you know? A rewarding career, a lot of friends who loved and respected him, and a wonderful future ahead of him. But one night, he set it all on fire and faked my death, just to protect me. We were on the run for the rest of my childhood…” she trails off, her words slowly fading out in the cold wind that tussles up her hair. “Do you understand why he did that?” 

When she looks at him, it is as if her unblinking eyes look through his armor, both physical and otherwise. What lies beneath is worth nothing, he knows. The pretty lie he has on his tongue dies before he can set it free. 

“I….”

“Do you think my father was brave?” 

Sylvain swallows. “Probably.”

Byleth nods, thoughtfully. “He might have been. But more so, I think he was afraid.” Then, after a moment, she asks, “Are you afraid, Sylvain?”

Sylvain almost chokes on his tongue. “Me? Professor, I’ve never known fear in my life!” he exclaims with a jovial smile on his face that hurts his frozen cheeks. It falters within seconds. 

Byleth raises a single brow. “If you say so,” she says cryptically before returning to her story. “Twenty years later, we returned to Garreg Mach, although not by choice. My father was wary - after all, we hadn’t left without reason. But one of the last conversations I had with him before he died, he confessed to me that he doubted if he had made the right decision. In trying to protect me, he had also robbed me of a life at Garreg Mach, and condemned me to a sheltered upbringing, detached from the world. I never made a single friend until I ended up teaching your class, did you know that?”

Sylvain remembers how she used to be when he first met her: cold and emotionless. She is still like that, sometimes, but other times she smiles too, and everyone loves her just for who she is. He hated her for that, once, but he doesn’t anymore. 

“I didn’t learn my mother’s name until I read it on her tombstone,” Byleth confesses, her voice soft and fragile. “My mother sacrificed everything for me. So did my father. They did it out of love. But their sacrifice cost not only them: it also cost me and the people who cared about them.” 

For a second he sees a vision of a future: Enja, older and wiser, standing in front of a grave. She isn’t carrying flowers, no. She’s holding the Lance of Ruin in one hand while the others trace a name. His name. 

His eyes are burning. It’s because of the wind, he tells himself. “Maybe your father-- maybe he was right. Maybe you would have died. Or worse.” There is a desperate edge to his voice that has no right to be there. 

“Perhaps,” Byleth says kindly. “But I would have liked to have a choice. Maybe not then as a baby, but later, when I was a bit older. What would my life have been like, if we had never left?” 

“You can’t go back in time. It is pointless to think about what would have been,” Sylvain says, and was his voice always this high and this watery? “You’re-- you’re _alive_. They aren’t. You can’t change that. You… you just _can’t_.” His voice breaks, and he sags on top of his horse, burying his face in his hands. “Even if you want nothing more... than to...”

“Exactly.” Byleht halts their horses. “I would give the world just to talk to my mother once. To see my father one last time. But I can’t. All I have is their tombstone and the memories. That and a future, one they gave me. A future for my children. _With_ my children. Just like you."

For months, he has kept every emotion inside, and nobody has been able to tear a single sincere feeling from his heart. But the professor was always different. A sob wrecks through Sylvain’s body, and as soon as the first one breaks free, the rest comes out as well. He always hated it when a girl cried, but even more so when it is him who is in tears. He isn't a pretty crier. He is only a good catch on the outside: wealthy, handsome and-- most importantly-- born with a Crest. The inside is ugly, dark and rotten, and when he cries, it all comes out. The tears come like torrents, unthawing his frozen face and amplifying every self-loathing thought he has ever had.

Byleth pulls him off his horse onto the ground and rubs gentle circles on his back.

“Jeralt was a great father,” she says gently once he has calmed down somewhat, offering her handkerchief to wipe away the snot and the tears. “And I believe, so are you.” 

“They are better off without me,” Sylvain sobs, a fresh batch of tears falling on his cheeks. “I haven’t… I haven’t even held my youngest daughter yet,” he confesses shamefully. He’s afraid to speak her name, afraid to curse her like he curses everything else.

Byleth urges him gently. “Do you want to hold her?” 

“I shouldn’t.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“Yes,” he whispers, his body is shivering all over. “Yes, I want to hold Khel, and Enja too. I... I want to hold them so badly.” 

His heart shatters all over again when he says their names. His daughters! His precious little children, who deserve so much more than him as a father. “I… I want to see them grow up. I want to be there. I want to be their father -- a good father, no! A great father! Better than mine ever was! I would burn down this entire country to see them safe. I _would_ , without blinking, without hesitation. And that’s exactly why I should stay far away from them. They deserve someone who sets a good example. Someone who can love without breaking and hurting everything and everyone he touches.” 

When he finally runs out of words, the sun on his face feels a little warmer, or maybe it's just the tears that keep streaming down his face.

“I may be new at emotions,” Byleth says completely seriously. “But from what I’ve learned, it is impossible to love someone without hurting them sometimes. Not if you truly care, not if you truly know each other. That’s the nature of love and life.” 

“But I… I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. I’m so tired of fighting. The war is over, but it’s still in my head, you know? I still wake up, clinging to that godforsaken lance. I look at my wife, and I wonder when she'll take my head, tonight or tomorrow. I don’t trust _anyone_ ,” he confesses, and he feels like the worst person alive, but lighter too. “Least of all myself.” 

“It is hard to let go of the past. Of the things we’ve seen.” Byleth wraps an arm around his shoulder and draws her into her embrace like he imagines a loving mother would. 

He remembers the last time he hugged someone, and how that evening ended. How often he still wakes up muttering Ingrid's name and feeling so empty inside that no bottle of wine can fill the void. 

He thinks of Miklan, the way he screamed when the Lance of Ruin consumed him. The way he still haunts Sylvain’s nightmares.

"But... what if she has a crest?" he whispers, his words almost lost in the wind. "What if one of them does, but the other doesn't?"

"Then you tell them what happened to you and your brother. You fight on to create a world in which it doesn't matter," she says sagely. "You are not your father, and your daughters aren't you and Miklan. They will find entirely new ways to fail, all by themselves. But, if you raise them right, they will also learn from their mistakes."

"I'm not that strong." His voice breaks on every word.

"You are. You're a bright man, Sylvain. Brighter than me, and with a much larger heart. You will figure it out, you just need to be brave now, and be willing to make a change."

She speaks as if she has complete confidence in his abilities, and somehow that is the most frightening thing: disappointing her. Not just her. His parents, his brother, his friends, and most of all his daughters. But something that feels dangerously much like hope blooms along with that feeling, and it scares him.

"What if it’s too late?”

"It isn’t." There is no room for doubt in her voice.

Sylvain buries his nose into her shoulder and blinks away the last of his tears. They stand there for a while, and although he is much taller and bigger than her, she is the one holding him up. When they break apart he feels a little silly for bawling like a child in his old teacher’s arms. But Byleth pats his shoulder one last time and gives him one of those small smiles that would make anyone feel like they had the favor of the Goddess herself.

“Go home, Sylvain,” she says and hands him the reins of his horse. “Kiss your daughters, and tell them how much you love them. Listen to their first words, cherish their smiles, revel in their growth. Do whatever you need to do to become the person you want to be, not the person you feel like you need to become. Don’t you want that?” 

“Yes… yes I do.” And admitting that, to her and himself, is like shedding a bloodsoaked armor at the end of the war. “I don’t want to be my father. Or my brother.” 

“Then don’t,” Byleth says, sounding eerily much like Felix for a moment. 

He tells her what he told him then. “It’s not that easy.” 

“It is, and yet it isn’t. Only you know how to be yourself, Sylvain. Nobody else.” 

“I don’t know what to do.” 

“Nobody does. We just make it up while we go,” Byleth says in a conspiratorial tone, drawing a sincere chuckle from Sylvain’s lips. “You can ask for help. You’re not alone, even if you’ve been working very hard to push everyone away. But you have to be brave now. Not for your children, but for you.” 

Sylvain turns his face towards the sun, hanging low on the horizon. The rays of light reflect beautifully on the white powder snow, almost entirely untouched. Pinetrees gently sway in the wind, their branches heavy with snow. He’s a little cold and a little tired, but he remembers a time when he would climb up those very same trees together with Felix and Glenn, while Dimitri and Ingrid were scolding them from the ground. They always got dirty and wet, and once Felix caught a nasty cold and almost died. But it had been fun, he remembers. He misses those long-gone days when the world was a playground and the future was as much a blank slate as the snow-covered plains that stretch ahead of them. 

“Remember what I told you at the end of the war? I said that, before I met you, I'd gone my whole life not knowing there was another way for me to live,” Sylvain recalls, looking at the sky above. The clouds are far away, but they’re still there, still looming in the distance. “But I haven’t been living at all, have I?”

“It’s not too late. Not yet. This is not the end. This is only the beginning.” 

Her words echo through the cold landscape, and Sylvain nods. He’s tired and probably looks like a mess, but something bright shines through behind it all. He mounts his steed easily. The horse neighs happily, welcoming him back. 

He looks at the perfect snow in front of him one last time, and suddenly, the future is clear to him. _It’s a brand new world,_ he thinks. But for the first time he actually believes it.

One look at Byleth tells him she knows exactly what he is thinking. Her reassuring smile is the last push he needs. 

“I… I’m sorry about your favor, Professor, but I have to go home now,” he says with a playful wink that’s far from sincere. Old habits die hard. 

"Consider the debt repaid."

Sylvain's heart grows two sizes and his eyes burn again, but this time for different reasons. "Thank you, Professor." 

"It's Archbishop now. Or just Byleth. We're friends, Sylvain. Don't forget that," she says, but her reprimanding tone brings him back to when he was nineteen and foolish. 

_Well,_ he thinks as he wipes away the last of his tears. _More foolish._ He's been acting like a tool lately, hasn't he?

The sun is still high on the horizon, and just like the snowy landscape in front of him, his future stretches out further than the eye can see. He guides his horse forward, squints his eyes and looks for landmarks. “On second thought, which way is home? I have no idea where we are.” 

“We’re at most an hour away from Castle Gautier,” Byleth says neutrally, and she leads her horse forward through the snow, into the woods.

Sylvain almost falls off his horse again from shock. “What? _How_? We’ve been riding for days!” 

“We’ve been circling these woods for days. Have you considered getting glasses, Sylvain?”

**XXX**

When they return to Castle Gautier fifty minutes later, Sylvain feels his cheeks burn and not just from crying. Shame curls up in his stomach, and fear makes his bones heavy and his steps slow. 

“Are you sure…?” He trails off when they stand in front of the grand entrance.

Byleth smiles at him kindly. “Go, Sylvain. Be brave. I’ll be at the fishing pond if you need me.” She pats him on the shoulder one last time. “I think it will take me at least a few more weeks to catch every kind of fish, so I'll be around for a while. Don’t be afraid to ask for help this time, understood?”

He walks into the entrance hall. It’s a large, dark room with a high ceiling, once upon a time used to host balls. Sylvain can’t remember the last time his family hosted one. It must have been before his mother died and before Miklan left. The grand staircase at the end of the hall is perfectly polished, but the golden decorations look dull. 

_It’s the light,_ Sylvain realizes as he looks at the thick curtains, embroidered with the Crest of Gautier. Or rather, the lack of it. An idea forms in his mind, and it doesn't let go of him. This is as a good a place to start as any.

“Hey, what’s your name?” he asks the first maid who crosses his path. 

“My Lord!” she squeaks out, and bows deeply. “My apologies! I almost didn't recognize you!” 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says gently, rubbing his cheeks. He should probably shave and wash himself. “Can you tell me your name?” 

“I-it’s Amelia,” she stutters, and bows deeply again.

“Thank you, Amelia. That’s a nice name. Could you do me a favor?” 

She nods reluctantly, looking like a mouse in a trap. “O-of course, My Lord...” She stammers, almost falling over herself. 

Sylvain’s smile falters. Does his household really fear him? Has he truly fallen that far? 

He’ll have to work on that later. First things first. “Could you gather a few of your friends and take down these old curtains?” 

She looks at the curtains. They’re long, old, and faded by the light that only barely shines through them. 

She looks at him hesitantly, her hands folded together in front of her chest. “But… My Lord… They’ve been there for as long as I can remember.” 

Sylvain can’t remember the last time they were opened, if ever. “Exactly!” He tries to sound more confident than he feels and hides his shaking hands behind his back. “They’re kind of out of style. Besides, this place could use some natural light. It’s kind of a gloomy castle, don't you think?” He puts up his most gentle smile, trying to put her at ease. 

“It’s… it might be a little…” she stammers, looking everywhere but at him.

“Like one of those haunted houses from the stories?” The maid nods meekly, blushing from head to toe. “I don’t want my daughters to get haunted by ghosts at night, you know? So I thought… maybe we could make the place a bit more… light? That will scare them away. And maybe make the place a tad more modern, while we’re at it.” 

The maid stands a little straighter. “Will you… will you be hosting a ball soon?” 

“Maybe,” he says. The idea of inviting strangers into his house sounds dreadful. But dancing with Enja, little pink ribbons in her hair while he twirls her around… That sounds nice. 

He shakes his head to draw himself out of his thoughts only to find the maid staring at him with an odd look in her eyes. 

“Sorry,” he apologizes sincerely, wringing his hands nervously. “I didn’t consider a ball. Let’s start with fixing this place up, shall we? Could you gather some people to take down the curtains?” 

This time she returns his smile. “Of course!” Then, more softly: “And if I may make a suggestion, My Lord…”

“Please! Please do!” Sylvain says eagerly.

“Perhaps we could also… remove the painting in the servant’s hall? I’ve… I’ve always been scared of it.” 

“Let’s get right on that, then,” Sylvain exclaims, knowing exactly what she is talking about. It’s his grandfather’s portrait, a stern man who never said a kind word until the day he died. It will probably be more useful in a museum, or even better, his fireplace. “Oh, and Amelia? If you, or any of the staff members, have any idea how to fix this place up, feel free to approach me.” 

Amelia looks at him with stars in her eyes. She’s young, Sylvain realizes, probably barely fifteen and full of hopes and dreams of a better world. “Truly?”

“Truly,” Sylvain says with a smile. This time it comes completely natural.

**XXX**

When he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t recognize the man staring back at him. His eyes are sunken into his skull, and his hair has lost all of its shine. Instead of shattering the priceless glass, he takes a cold bath, shaves, and has his hair cut by the cook's son. 

The next time he looks in the mirror, the person that stares back at him still looks like a cheap imitation of Sylvain, but at least a passable one. 

“Baby steps,” he reminds himself, his heart beating wildly in his chest. “I can do this.” 

Every step towards Enja’s room is a struggle. He thinks about turning around at least a thousand times, but he keeps going regardless. 

Will she smile at him, when he enters? Will she still want to sit on his lap and listen to his stories? Dread creeps in his gut. What if Byleth was wrong, and it is too late? What if his daughter hates him?

He stands in front of her door, gathering his breath and all of his courage. He can hear her voice from the outside, uttering almost complete sentences. Fighting to the death in Enbarr is nothing compared to willing his hand to move the handle until the door opens.

“Little princess?” he calls hesitantly before sticking his head inside the room. It’s as messy as he remembers. There are toys everywhere: little trains, dolls, and building blocks. In the middle of the chaos is a mop of dark curls that dance beautifully when Enja turns her little head to him. 

“Papa?” she calls out hesitantly.

Sylvain swallows the lump that is stuck in his throat, eyes burning. “It’s me, Enja. Papa.” 

For a second, they just look at each other. From the corner of his eyes, he sees her governess tiptoe out of the room, but he only has eyes for his little girl. She has grown, he realizes with both pride and shame. Maybe she has grown too far away from him.

But then Enja breaks into a smile, wide and toothy and utterly sincere. “PAPA!” she cries, and with more finesse than he knew her to be capable of, she jumps up to her feet and launches herself into his arms.

He sinks to his knees and presses her head against his chest, wrapping his arms around her. Enja clings to him, her little hands so strong already. He thought he had run out of tears, but as soon as his knees hit the ground one, sob after another sob wrecks through his body. He buries his face into her shoulder, unable to keep the tears at bay.

“Papa?” Enja asks hesitantly, pulling slightly away to look up at him. “Where are you hurt?” 

Sylvain wipes the tears from his eyes and presses a big, snotty kiss against her cheek. “Inside,” he says, and puts his hand over his heart. 

Enja nods at him determinedly, and puts her hands on top of his chest. “I will heal you,” she says.

A laugh rips from Sylvain’s throat as Enja determinedly mirrors a healer’s stance, her brow furrowed in determination. After a few seconds, she pulls her hand away and beams back up at him. “Is the pain gone?” she asks, looking hopeful.

Sylvain nods eagerly. “You’re a miracle healer!” He pulls her back into his arms and whirls her around until she is screaming with laughter, and Sylvain feels lighter than he has in many years.

That night, they share dinner, and he lets her eat his dessert. Afterward, he reads from her favorite books until she falls asleep on top of his chest. He stays there in the nursery all night, listening to every breath she takes.

He’s not a very religious man, and he never had an aptitude for Faith, but that night he makes a vow with only Sothis as his witness: “I’ll never lose sight of what is truly important again,” he promises and presses a gentle kiss into Enja’s dark hair. She mutters something in her sleep, and Sylvain takes it as an agreement.

**XXX**

He regrets his decision to sleep on the floor when he wakes up, because his back hurts the entire next day. But it's worth it, because by the time he has her dressed for the day, Enja no longer looks at him like he will disappear at any moment.

“Let’s go, princess,” he says, and heads to his office to take care of some urgent business.

The piles of paperwork waiting for him aren’t so dreadful when Enja plays on his lap. Working like this is not very effective because she keeps stealing his quill to doodle what he assumes are horses on his parchment, and yet Sylvain still manages to finish up faster than he has in months. 

_It’s all about the right motivation,_ he thinks. Once he is done, he can stall no longer and takes Enja to Khel’s room.

His youngest daughter is barely five months old, but she's big compared to Enja at that age. Unlike her sister, she is far warier of him, regarding him as a stranger. She isn’t wrong.

It hurts that she cries when he first holds her. But it doesn't last forever; Sylvain cradles her gently against his chest and sings the songs he barely remembers his mother singing to him as a child until she stops crying. She looks like him, from her dark shock of ginger hair to the tilt of her chin. Her eyes are darker than his own, but she has his mother’s freckles. 

Enja tugs at his sleeves, unhappy to share his attention with her younger sister. “Sorry,” he whispers to both of them, and draws them both into a hug. With two unruly children caught in his embrace, he feels warmer and richer than he ever has before.

It takes only two weeks for Khel to take a shine to him. She’s small enough that he can take her with him everywhere while he, the old steward, and the rest of the staff make some long-overdue changes to the castle. The seamstress makes lavish costumes out of the fine cloth of the curtains, and before the end of the month, Sylvain hosts a small masked ball for the servants and knights that serve his household in the same entrance hall he once loathed. In the light of the lit chandelier, Enja dances in the center of it all, dressed like a dragon wearing a princess gown.

(“Dragon Princess!” she had exclaimed time and again while preparing for the ball, and Sylvain can hardly deny her a thing when she looks at him like _that_.)

“You look healthy,” someone says softly. Sylvain turns around and sees his wife standing right behind him. She isn’t in costume, and he feels a little silly in his pirate costume, eyepatch and all. He adjusts his new glasses so he can look at her properly. 

Sylvain nods. “I am.” Most days, that isn't a lie.

They stare at each other for a moment, taking each other in. Sylvain searches for words desperately, but can’t find them. This is his wife, the mother of his children, and his companion for years. But they have nothing to talk about. His wife seems to struggle with the same thing.

Gently, he rocks Khel back and forth. She fell asleep pretty early despite the music and the general commotion. She’s a quiet baby who prefers to observe with her big dark eyes rather than call for attention, and Sylvain can’t wait until she learns to speak and can explain to him everything that goes on in that tiny head of hers. It is bound to be wonderful.

He looks back up and sees his wife stare at their daughter with the same love as he feels in his chest.

“Not here. Tonight, we will speak,” his wife says formally, and gently pushes a lock of ginger hair out of Khel’s face. 

Sylvain nods, and watches her disappear back into the crowd like she never was there at all. 

**XXX**

That night, after all the servants have gone to bed and his daughters are asleep, Sylvain slips into his wife’s bedroom, feeling like an intruder.

He hasn’t been here since she told him she was expecting, over a year ago. The place hasn’t changed much since then. His wife greets him, still dressed the same as she was during the ball. It’s a practical gown, one she could easily fight in. It reminds him a little of Dorothea, and that alone makes his stomach feel upset.

“We should talk,” Sylvain says, but doesn’t sit down on her bed, nor does his wife.

She stares back at him impassively. “We should, my lord.” 

It occurs to him that in all of their years of marriage, she has never called him by his name. He rarely thinks of her by her own, either. In his mind she has always been _his wife_ , and all the weight and disdain that comes with that title.

_'Marriage isn’t the only way,’_ he remembers Ingrid saying on the night before his wedding. In retrospect, she was right. But Sylvain has always been a little thick-headed when it came to matters of the heart.

But Byleth was right. It's not too late, so Sylvain takes the plunge and tries honesty for a change. “This marriage isn’t working.” 

His wife doesn't avert her eyes or look in any way surprised or affected by his words. All she does is nod clinically. “It has served its purpose, but it has run its course.” 

Sylvain blinks. “What do you mean with that?” 

For a moment his wife looks pained, reminding him vividly of when Petra would struggle with their language. “Our marriage was a contract, a promise of peace. We have attained peace, and the Gods have blessed it with two children. Therefore, it has served its purpose.” 

She sounds so sure of herself, so cold and emotionless like this isn’t their marriage - their lives! - she’s talking about. “But… are you happy?” 

She sighs. “My happiness was never part of the agreement.” 

_Or mine,_ Sylvain thinks. But he was the one who negotiated the terms, wasn’t he? He has never truly looked at his wife before, but right now, under the faint flickering candlelight, he sees just how tired she looks.

It has been easy to think of her as the enemy all these years. Of the person who trapped him in this unhappiness, while it has truly been him all along. 

“I’m sorry.” When his wife looks at him with confusion written all over her face he adds: “I’m sorry for not taking your happiness into account. For trapping you here, far away from your home, and never giving this marriage a chance.” 

He does not expect her forgiveness, but her smile is careful yet sincere. “Apology accepted,” she says with a steady voice, and finally sits down on the bed. “But it is not needed. I did not marry you for happiness or love. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed.” 

“Then why did you marry me?”

His wife stares at him with narrowed eyes for a second. “You are Death,” she says eventually.

Sylvain nearly falls forward. Of all things, he did not expect her to say that.

She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. To my people, they see your red hair, your living lance with it’s the spinning eye, and they see Death. For centuries, we have fought against you. Your men we could kill, but never the Pale Rider. We could only strive to fight an honorable battle, die an honorable death, and pray to the Gods that he will not return soon for those we leave behind,” she explains, her Srengi accent suddenly more pronounced than ever.

During his three year mission in Sreng, Sylvain learned the names of all of their gods. But nobody would ever tell him the stories of the Red God, often portrayed as a pale rider with a lance in hand. _Death_ , he learned later. He figured it was a taboo, but he was wrong.

“That makes no sense! If you feared us, why not make peace? I know my ancestors have offered it many times.” A sudden coldness chills him to his core. 

“Would you trust Death if he came to you with a lance in one hand, and an offer of peace in the other?” his wife asks, and Sylvain looks away, remembering his father’s lessons, and how he thought of any peace with Sreng: temporary at best. “We might not be a large country, but we are an old one. A proud one. We remember Duscur. We remember those that came before Duscur, before Fodlan, the ones that time has forgotten along with their corpses.”

She balls her hands into fists, and for a moment anger flashes over her otherwise so carefully controlled features.

Sylvain sits down on her bed, his eyes wide. “Then why now? Why did your people welcome me into your homes, into their lands?”

“We may be isolated, but Sreng has eyes everywhere. We know your King, the Relic of Death he wields, and the land he has conquered with it. It was only a matter of time before he - or Death - would come and conquer us too.” 

Sylvain swallows and thinks back to every time Dimitri visited Castle Gautier. He can’t remember his wife ever talking to him. Was she afraid? Dimitri has the capacity for violence, and a history of it too, but he is a kind man who does not rejoice in it. He knows the rumors that still persist about Dimitri, but Sylvain didn't think they would reach all the way to Sreng.

His heart sinks down to his shoes. His greatest accomplishment in his life - a lasting peace with Sreng - and it wasn’t even because of his own merit. 

_‘Worthless welp,’_ the ghost of Miklan echoes through his head, mocking him beyond the grave. _‘Did you really think you were special?’_

Before he can drown in it, his wife speaks again. “We expected armies, but they never came. Instead you were there, speaking our language, breathing our culture and customs, offering peace on equal terms.”

He remembers now. He left the Lance of Ruin with his father, mostly to make a point to his old man. A contorted chuckle escapes his mouth, leaving the taste of madness on his lips. “That can’t be all. It can’t be that easy. All the lives lost….” He looks up at his wife. “What about Enja, and the blessing of your Gods?” 

“Enja too, is Death,” his wife explains calmly “And so is Khel. But they are also of Sreng. A bridge between your world and mine. The Gods have blessed our pact.” 

She takes a deep breath, and he can see the pain written all over her posture, in the way she tries and fails to smile. It’s like looking in a mirror. “I married you not because of power or duty. I married you because when your father rode into my motherland twenty years ago, I lost a mother and brother to him.” She looks away, her fists trembling. “I was there. I will never forget.” 

Sylvain stiffens and instinctively reaches for a weapon he does not carry. “If I am Death, why not kill me? You had many opportunities, long before your Gods blessed our marriage,” he says slowly, watching her every move.

Because he is looking so intently at her, he sees the way she stiffens, if only for the blink of an eye. 

“Wait…,” he says slowly as the realization dawns upon him. “You _did_ kill Death, didn’t you?”

It’s not a question, and his wife doesn't do him the disservice of pretending it is. “You are a clever man. I have always known that.” She looks him straight in the eye. His wife’s smile is guilty, but not apologetic in the slightest. “Your father's death was long and painful, one day of suffering for every soul of Sreng he took.” 

She opens a drawer, and pulls a small vial from it, containing a corrosive looking green liquid.

Sylvain’s blood drains from his face. “And now you have come for me.” 

His wife laughs softly and shakes her head. “You are not your father. We inherit blood from our parents, but not their sins and virtues. Entrusting that is the sole territory of the Gods.” 

She hands him the vial and sits next to him. He could overpower her easily and pour it down her throat. They both know that, but still, she doesn’t move away.

His head is swimming with a thousand little revelations, each of them sprouting more questions than they solve. “You got your revenge, then. Why stay? It can’t be out of love for me. Our marriage is a sham, to put it kindly.”

“You misunderstand. I did not marry you for revenge; it was merely an added benefit. I married you for the future. To make sure that no more of my siblings - no more of my children - would die before their time,” she explains carefully. “Do you know what Khel’s full name, Ukhel, means?” Sylvain shakes his head. “It means death. Because while Enja is Death, so is Khel.”

Anger roars up in Sylvain’s gut. “Why would you name her like that? An innocent baby, doomed from the day she was born!” 

“To my people, it is not a curse,” she explains and writes the Srengi characters of Khel’s name in the air. “One day, Enja will rule Gautier, and Khel will rule my territory in Sreng. And then, finally, when Death will rule both of us, and we will be equals.”

Sylvain narrows his eyes dangerously. “So all you wanted was a Crest?” 

His wife looks at him like he has grown a second head. “What does that have anything to do with this?” 

“You need a crest to wield a Heroes Relic.” _Not my daughters,_ he repeats again and again in his mind, rage slowly unfurling in his chest. _My daughters won’t suffer like I have because of their blood._

She laughs incredulously. “Do you think your people are the only ones with dragon’s blood in their veins? We have no shortage of them, I assure you. I myself am one of them.” 

Sylvain looks at her strangely. _Dragon’s Blood?_ It’s a strange, outdated euphemism for Crests he has only encountered once before, in the forbidden library underneath Garreg Mach. 

"You have a Crest?"

"My grandfather was blessed," she says, as if that explains everything. "Enja and Khel might bear your Dragon's Blood, or mine. Or neither. It matters not."

“So… you do not care if she has a Crest… or not?” he says each word slowly, making sure there can be no misunderstanding between them. 

His wife shakes her head. “She is _Death_. But death is not the end. It is the beginning of a new life, a rebirth. Enja and Khel will bring Death to the old ways, and usher in a new era, an era of peace.” She speaks with so much passion and love, her eyes ablaze. When she talks about their children, she looks so proud and happy, and for the first time ever he feels like they’re on the same wavelength. 

He looks at her in a whole new light. “What will you do now?” he asks his wife - no, Naran. 

Naran's smile falls from her face. “What will _you_ do now? I have confessed to murder. It is your right to kill me, as it will be Enja’s right to take your life if you do,” she says without a shred of fear. She points at the vial she handed him, the green liquid inside of it swirling ominously in the flickering light.

Sylvain drops it immediately, and the vial shatters on the floor into a thousand pieces. “I don’t want that,” he utters with wide eyes, his voice high with panic. “Goddess, I’m so sick of death and destruction. I never want our little girl to ever spill a single drop of blood in her life.”

Naran smiles warmly, her eyes glittering, just like their daughter's. “Then we want the same thing. Peace, for the rest of her days. May she live forever.” 

Sylvain takes a deep breath, readjusts his glasses and tries to get his thoughts in order. His mind is reeling, too many revelations rocking his world that is already on shaky foundations to begin with. 

_‘Let it break, then._ ’ a voice in the back of his mind whispers. It sounds a little bit like Miklan, but not the man that tried to murder him. It's like his brother as he remembers him as a young child, before either of them knew what Crests and inheritance meant. 

A small smile creeps on his face, and he feels almost childishly giddy, deliriously so. “On our marriage day, we swore ‘until Death do us part…,” he says slowly, allowing the idea to come into shape in his mind. “....but if I am Death, as you believe, I have this power.”

Naran beams at him, her smile as devious as his own. “Now you are thinking like a man of Sreng, Sylvain.”

He’ll never love her, he realizes. Not like a wife, like a woman. But after a night of whispering like partners in crime, he realizes that he never truly knew her before this moment. Before the first rays of sunlight peek between the curtains, they have come up with a scandalous but utterly sophisticated idea that will undoubtedly shake Fodlan to its core. They get the church involved, and the people of Sreng too. Most of all, they spare no effort to ensure that their children in no way suffer from this plan.

The first divorce between two nobles in the history of Fodlan is announced less than a month later. It’s the talk of the town, if not the nation, and they receive more than one angry letter. They read them all out loud between finalizing the contracts in theatrical voices before using them to keep the fireplace burning. They continue their plan regardless of the opposition, for once both in full control of their own fate. It’s a new world, after all. 

**XXX**

Sylvain gets terribly drunk on the night before his divorce, or _‘the funeral of their marriage’,_ as his soon to be ex-wife calls it. The date of their divorce is supposedly a secret, but a very poorly kept one at that. Even if it is going to be a private affair attended only by only the two of them, His Majesty, the archbishop, and his soon to be ex-father-in-law, it seems like everyone knows of it anyway.

Sylvain couldn't care less, especially right now. His reputation has always been terrible, and he hasn’t smiled as much in years as he has today. He isn’t alone. Everyone is laughing, except his king. Dimitri doesn’t drink, and only his polite mask keeps him from looking as appalled as Sylvain knows he feels. 

Sylvain and Naran dance on the table, while her father and Byleth sing a terrible drinking song. They sing, drink, talk, and then drink some more. It’s a parting feast for five, and Sylvain celebrates every second of it.

Later, Dimitri takes him apart for a moment. “You seemed happy tonight, dancing with your wife.”

“Dimitri, my dude,” Sylvain says, sounding drunker than he is. “Just because something didn't work out, doesn't mean it didn't happen. It doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it for the good parts.” It took him a long time to realize that, too. “Besides, this is a Sreng divorce custom. Can’t break tradition, you know,” he adds with a wink.

“You seem to have no problem doing that.”

“Only when it suits me.” Dimitri does not look convinced, and then Sylvain wipes the smile off his face and sighs. “Naran and I were terrible as spouses. Turns out, as friends and co-parents, we get along great.”

He never thought he could call her one of his friends, but here they are. He thinks back of how miserable he was on the night before their wedding, how badly he wanted anyone to stop him. He should have listened to Felix and Ingrid back then. 

But if he had, he wouldn’t have had two beautiful daughters. Sylvain smiles, thinking of Khel and Enja, sleeping in their cots. Things are going to change for them too, but only for the better. He’ll make sure of it. They both will. 

“I don’t fully understand,” Dimitri says after a moment of silence, pulling Sylvain out of his thoughts. “But you are happy, at last, so you have my blessing.”

And with startling clarity, Sylvain realizes that he is indeed happy. Not euphorically so, but there is a gentle fire blooming in his chest, warm and comfortable. And for the first time in a very long time - if not forever - he feels free. Free of expectations, of the burdens of his Crest and legacy and perhaps most of all, of his thoughts.

He doesn’t tell Dimitri that. Something tells him that Dimitri understands without words anyway, after all he has been through. 

“This isn’t really the end, you know? It’s just the end of a cycle. A new beginning,” he repeats Naran’s words. The people of Sreng are surprisingly philosophical. Once she returns to her territory, Naran has promised to send a few scholars to his court, to educate both him and the girls. 

He’s looking forward to it. Tomorrow no longer feels like a knife hanging over his neck. “I’m moving forward, at last.”

Dimitri smiles at him, somewhat unsure still. Sylvain refrains from spiking his drink, because he is a good friend and not because his king is freakishly strong and can easily carry all of them to bed. 

By the end of the night, Naran’s father is so utterly drunk that he is convinced that Byleth is a Goddess. He goes on and on about a prophecy, something about ‘the beginning,’ but Sylvain is too drunk to listen to his alcohol-induced epiphany, so instead elects to laugh until his cheeks hurt.

The ceremony the next morning is somber and solemn, but only because four out of five attendants have a massive hangover. When Naran leaves Gautier that evening, he kisses her on the cheek. She takes Enja with her, but he has no fear that she will bring her back before the moon is full again, as she promised. 

Death has parted them, and they are equals now. A new dawn beckons. 

**XXX**

Sylvain wakes up a free man the next morning for the first time in his life. He celebrates by placing Khel’s cot in his study, and proceeds to read every single document to her. Tells her about his ideas for a school on the border, the first advanced educational institute in all of Fodlan with no religious, military, or magical purpose. Khel coos thoughtfully, and Sylvain agrees with her that opening it up to people from Sreng would be beneficial. There is still so much they can learn from each other. 

His bed is lonely for one night. The thought of inviting a woman from the streets upstairs tempts him, but only for a second. Instead, he gets up, gets his sleeping daughter from her bed and takes her to his bedroom. When Enja returns from her stay with her mother, she eagerly proclaims his king-size bed her new territory and falls asleep curled around her little sister that night. Sylvain sleeps on the floor some nights, but other than his back, he has no protests. He’s got the best roommates he’s ever had, even if they wet the bed pretty much every night.

**XXX**

Whatever Dimitri told their old classmates, it must have been terrible, because within two months they all suddenly find time in their busy schedules to visit him.

Ashe is the first to arrive. He cooks dinner for him until Sylvain no longer fits in his pants. Annette and Mercedes are next, and their cookies ensure that he will never fit in his armor ever again either. Sylvain laughs, and takes another cookie. He donates his armor the next day to a young, promising knight who reminds him of Glenn, and makes him promise to wear it better than Sylvain did himself. The boy nearly cries and thanks him profusely, although it really should be the other way around. Before Mercedes leaves, she kisses his forehead, and tells him how proud she is of him. 

Dedue and Byleth visit for a playdate with their twins, and by the end of the day Enja can say a few words in the language of Duscur. At night, they talk about the people they’ve lost, and raise a toast. Sylvain cries, and he isn’t ashamed of it either. A part of his life ends that night, and when the sun rises again, he feels like a new man.

**XXX**

When Felix arrives, he has a new sword strapped to his side that he never unsheathes. When Sylvain asks him about it, Felix mutters something about it being a gift, and then refuses to elaborate on it in favor of playing with Khel. Sylvain is nothing if not easily distracted into gushing about his children, so he doesn't learn who Felix’s mysterious benefactor is. 

Felix stays for a while. He is by Sylvain’s side when Naran comes and collects both of his daughters for the two months per year she has custody of both their children. Without them, the castle is quiet and empty, a veritable haunted house, but Felix keeps him on his toes until he has his darkest thoughts under control. 

When he leaves, Sylvain is sad to see him go. He stands awkwardly next to Felix while he saddles up his horse. Unlike his peers, he still refuses to travel with an entourage or even a single guard. He’s the highest-ranking noble in all of Fodlan, so nobody but the King or the Archbishop herself could order him to do so, and both of them have long since learned that you can’t make Felix do anything he truly doesn’t want to do.

“Don’t forget our promise,” Felix mutters in lieu of a goodbye, still not looking at him. He fiddles with the straps of the saddle.

Sylvain sighs, and adjusts the leathers until they are correctly tied. Can’t have the horse suffer for a full day because Felix never bothered to pay attention during any cavalry related lectures. “Have I given you any reason to think I will?”

Felix meets his gaze, eyes blazing. He’s angry, Sylvain realizes, but for once he can’t pinpoint why. 

“Don’t do something stupid,” Felix growls after a tense second. “I will kill you if you die.”

“That makes no sense,” Sylvain throws back at him. Felix snarls, and his hand flies to his sword so fast that Sylvain is almost scared. Almost. “Alright, alright! I promise I won’t do anything more than my usual stupidity.”

“See that you do,” Felix hisses, but with little heat to it. Instead of reaching for the hilt of his sword, he takes a satchel from his belt. “Take this. For Enja."

While Felix mounts his horse, Sylvain unceremoniously reaches into the pouch. He expected to find the sweets Enja charmed Felix into giving her almost daily, but instead he is met with precious metal and crystals. “This is…. a necklace?” 

He holds the necklace up to the light of the morning sun. Diamonds, rubies, and sapphires sparkle, reflecting light back into his face. A priceless artifact, probably older than the castle he lives in, and half as expensive too.

“It belonged to my mother. No use in keeping it around just to gather dust so I thought… Enja's next birthday is coming up, and girls like this stuff, right?” Felix explains quickly, too quickly. He has always been so very easy to read to those who know him.

Sylvain looks up to see a faint, embarrassed blush on his cheeks, and his heart grows ten sizes. He doesn’t know what to say, but tries anyway with a heartfelt, “Thank you, Felix. That means a lot to me.”

Felix guides his horse forward into the fresh snow, decidedly not looking at him. “Oh, and congratulations on your divorce. I’m…. I’m proud of you. Enja and Khel are lucky to have you as a father,” he adds quickly, words soft enough to get lost on the wind, and then before Sylvain can recover from the blow he just dealt him, spurs his horse into action.

“Felix,” Sylvain calls after his quickly retreating figure. “Felix, you can’t just _say_ that and then run off without getting a hug!” 

Felix shows no signs of stopping. 

Sylvain feels like a child all over again as he pulls an eager looking horse from the stable and mounts it without a saddle, ready to give chase. “FELIX! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE OR SO HELP ME GODDESS!”

In the end, Sylvain is the better rider between the two of them, and Felix submits to a hug, if begrudgingly.

**XXX**

There are good days, and there are bad days. Sylvain takes one at a time, and slowly one season fades into the next. And then one day, like a gust of spring wind in the middle of winter, Ingrid suddenly is on his doorstep.

Sylvain sees her pegasus approach from Khel’s bedroom window. He has dreamt about Ingrid enough that he would recognize her even blindfolded. So of course, the first thing he thinks is that the sleep deprivation that comes with being a single parent with a job is playing tricks on his mind. He reaches for his glasses - he still isn’t entirely used to them, but he never realized just how poor his eyesight had become until he started using them - only to find that they are still firmly seated on his nose.

He turns to his daughter, his heart beating in his chest, and asks: “Do you see that?”

Khel can’t talk yet of course, but she makes excited grabby hands at the quickly flying horse in the sky. Sylvain can’t help himself; he wraps Khel in a warm blanket and with her cradled against his chest sprints out of the room, down the hall and two flights of stairs. He ignores several surprised servants calling him by his first name with worry - a recent development he is particularly pleased about, but currently is the furthest thing from his mind. 

All Sylvain can think is: _This can’t be true. She can’t be here, because I ruined everything between us and threw every attempt of hers to make amends back in her face._

During his darkest days, Sylvain had burned every letter she sent after the first, and when they wouldn’t stop coming, he had sent her one letter back in which he was as mean as he could possibly be. It did its job, and Ingrid did not write to him again after that. He regretted it terribly once he pulled himself back together again, but the ship had sailed. He had no right to demand her attention after he had treated her so badly, didn’t want to hurt her more than he already had. 

He never thought he would ever see Ingrid again, but there she is: standing somewhat awkwardly in his courtyard, her carefully braided hair tousled by the journey, and her cheeks slightly red from the cold wind.

“Ingrid,” he whispers breathlessly, tears burning behind his eyes and his heart leaping out of his chest. She’s _here_. She’s really here!

She straightens her back immediately when she spots him. “Margrave Gautier,” she says formally, her perfect curtsy betraying her noble upbringing.

“It's _Sylvain_ ,” he all but begs her, coming to a halt in front of her. “Please, just Sylvain for you.”

In all these years, Ingrid still bites the inside of her cheek when she’s nervous. Moreso, Sylvain is surprised he can spot the small movement for what it is. “Sylvain,” she says after a pregnant pause. “It’s…. you look… good.”

“So do you,” Sylvain says without thinking. She _does_ look better than she did before, and a dark traitorous part of his mind that he is learning to ignore whispers that it is because she finally got rid of him. 

For a moment, they just stare at each other, taking each other in. Khel makes curious noises in his arms, but is content to just stare at Ingrid, taking in every detail. 

“What… what are you doing here, Ingrid?” 

Ingrid’s polite smile fades. “You were right,” she says resolutely. 

Straight to the point without dallying. Goddess, she truly is the strongest woman he has ever known. 

They both know exactly what she is talking about. “No, I wasn’t. I was trying to hurt you, because you hurt me. To push you away.”

“You couldn’t have hurt me like you did if you hadn’t been speaking the truth in some shape or form,” she says simply, her determined gaze never leaving his. “It took me some time to realize that, but it is true."

“I’m sorry.” The words slip out of his mouth like a waterfall, and then they keep coming. “Goddess, I am so sorry. For what I said that day. For the letter. For how I’ve treated you the past years, in general. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Ingrid says, and she takes a step forward. “I wasn’t in a good place, but I didn’t realize it. Or maybe I was just too stubborn, or too afraid, to allow myself to question if the future I had chosen for myself was truly the one i wanted."

Sylvain nods solemnly. "You're not the only one."

"So I've heard. We were both not doing well. But that is no excuse. It was unfair to take my issues out on you when you meant well. And for that, I am deeply sorry, Sylvain. Can you ever forgive me?” she asks, her voice thick with emotion.

Sylvain meets her halfway, and with one arm draws her into an embrace. “Shh, it’s fine. It’s okay. I understand. Apology accepted.” She wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him down, careful not to hurt Khel. It’s a little stiff, and his back hurts from bending down while balancing Khel, and yet hugging her feels like finding an oasis after a decade of drought. 

“Apology accepted,” Ingrid mutters into the fabric of his pajamas, and Sylvain nods eagerly, not trusting his voice. 

The heat of a thousand suns burns in his chest, and when they pull apart, something about the way her eyes are blazing tells him that Ingrid feels the exact same. She quickly looks away, coughs in her hand, and straightens her clothing. “That’s not why I came here, though. In a way, you were the one that gave me this idea in the first place.”

Sylvain is too busy wiping away a few happy tears to realize that she has pulled a scroll out of her saddlebag and handed it to him. He jostles Khel until he can break the seal with one hand. 

It’s a royal order, signed by Dimitri himself. That’s about as far as the document makes sense. “What…?” He pushes his glasses back up his nose, not believing his eyes.

"You were right. I wasn't happy there, and I wasn't doing what I set out to do when I became a knight there. But there is somewhere else where I _can_ make a difference, as both a knight and a friend."

"You mean to say. . ." Sylvain whispers while his heart beats faster than ever before.

The smile that Ingrid gives him is nothing short of blinding. “Lady Ingrid, reporting for duty!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Abby, it took three chapters, but at long last Sylvain is happily divorced and officially a single dad. Part one of the prompt is (finally) fulfilled! ✨
> 
> Please, ignore the fact that this chapter is almost as long as the previous two combined. If the death symbolism somehow went over your head in the previous chapters, you can't miss it here. One of the most interesting things about every culture is how they handle death, and I had a lot of fun working it out for Sreng. Playing with Sylvain's (limited and very biased) POV and knowledge is an absolute joy, and I hope you will forgive my gratuitous amounts of headcanons. Nobody even suspected that Naran was behind the death of the previous Margrave, which surprised me! It was however supposed to be very subtle. 
> 
> Many guessed that Byleth was the divine intervention, but not the method which she used. Sylvain punishes himself enough as it is, no need for anyone else to do it for him. Mental health is very close to my heart, but I hope I delivered a gentle recovery in this chapter. I have so much more to scream about all the little details, jokes, and references I put into this chapter, but let's not make this end note longer than the fic itself, shall we? Please, let me know what you think of this chapter. 
> 
> Next chapter: Death, Rebirth. Sylvain and Ingrid dance around the issue, literally.


	4. Death, Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks for the beta read Ari 😘

_Some decks omit the name from the card, calling it "The Card with No Name", thus giving the card a broader and less frightening meaning. There are other decks that title Death as "Rebirth" or "Death-Rebirth."_

* * *

Sylvian doesn’t bother wondering if Dimitri is pulling favorites by granting Ingrid’s request to be permanently stationed at Gautier; he knows it to be true. Relations between Sreng and Fodlan have never been better since he and Naran signed their divorce, so there is absolutely no need for the realm’s greatest knight to watch over the border herself.

But Sylvain doesn’t complain and is grateful for what he is given. Khel and Enja immediately take to Ingrid, and she to them. During the day, work together so seamlessly that it’s almost like they have been doing so all their lives. Ingrid’s worldly wisdom and unparalleled tenacity is a perfect balance for his silver tongue and intimate knowledge of his lands, and before he knows it, summer has arrived, and he can’t imagine his life without her by his side. 

Things are good between them, and during their rare days off-- after his children have settled in their beds and are fast asleep after yet another chivalric tale from Ingrid-- they talk for hours. There is a lot of lost time to make up for, and although a part of him will always ache a little for not being able to see the world as she has, the sting of envy no longer hurts when she shares every little detail by the candlelight. When Ingrid talks about the skies, the same stars she describes sparkle in her eyes. It's enough to get lost in. 

Sylvain never tires of talking about his daughters, but he talks about Naran too. Ingrid confesses that when she heard of his divorce, she at first worried about him. 

“But I see now that it has been good for you,” she says the night after they return from their monthly meeting with Naran at the border. Sylvain was utterly unsurprised that the two women got along, but it warmed his heart all the same.

("Ingrid is nice," Naran said with a knowing look.

"She is," Sylvain agreed, feeling blood rush to his cheeks. "She's good with the girls too."

Naran's smile, wolfish and teasing, haunted him the entire trip back to Gautier.)

“It was the best decision we could have made, for us,” Sylvain agrees and pours her a glass of wine. It’s from Galatea, the first vintage to come from the formerly barren lands in over two decades. It was a gift from Ingrid's father. “I worry about the girls. I miss them terribly every time they’re gone, but spending months a year without seeing either parent has got to hurt, doesn’t it?”

Ingrid accepts the glass and takes a sip. “You’re already more involved than most fathers ever were. My father used to go to war for months at a time back when I was young, and I would barely recognize him when he returned. And my mother died before I remember. Truly, there are worse childhoods.”

“I know that…” Sylvain trails off. She is right of course, but he still feels guilty and selfish from time to time. _It comes with being a parent,_ Dedue said, and Sylvain takes his word for it.

Before he can get lost in his own head, Ingrid puts a gentle hand on top of his own. “Ask Khel and Enja what _they_ want, when they get older,” she says sagely. “Maybe they like it this way. Maybe they don’t. Either way, I can teach them how to fly a pegasus so they can just fly back and forth as much as they want.”

Sylvain chokes. “My girls are not getting up in the air on their own until they’re much older, thank you very much!” The thought of either of them falling down is enough to make him want to run to Enja’s room and check if she is alright, as irrational as that is. 

But Ingrid’s fingers intertwined with his own ground him. “Of course not. I was fifteen by the time I learned how to ride a pegasus. That should be a good age, I think.”

“That’s more than a decade from now.” Sylvain swallows, his heart beating rapidly in his chest, but not out of fear for his daughters. The wine is loosening his lips. “Do you… do you really plan to stay that long?”

“Sylvain…” Ingrid whispers, her breath uneven. He waits for her to continue, and his eyes involuntarily glide to her lips, but no more words pour out. 

And there it is. They can talk about _almost_ everything. Everything except… this. This _thing_ between that makes him want to pull her close and never let go, that makes Ingrid stare into his eyes like she wants to devour him whole. And Sylvain so desperately wants to be devoured, so much that it scares him.

It might be uncharted territory between the two of them, but it’s a familiar road leading to nothing but despair for Sylvain. After his divorce, he vowed that the only girls in his life would be Enja and Khel. He hasn’t broken that vow yet, but every day is an exercise in restraint. 

Ingrid clears her throat. “I mean… unless you want to get rid of me before then.”

“Never,” Sylvain says quickly. Too quickly, betraying himself. 

It would be so easy to pull her forward, to weave his hands into her hair, undo her braids, and then her clothes. He has done it so many times before with so many different women. But Ingrid isn’t just any woman, and he isn’t that man anymore. 

“Sylvain,” Ingrid says again, sounding devastated. She looks especially hungry tonight, and he is pulled back to the day she came to meet Enja, almost four years ago. They never talked about that sort-of kiss, but that doesn’t mean that Sylvain hasn’t spent hours laying awake at night, his fingers pressed to his lips, trying to recall what it was like.

_I’m not that man anymore_ , Sylvain reminds himself. What they have rebuilt is too precious to ruin with whatever is burning in Sylvain’s gut. He has been ignoring it for months, maybe even years. If he can have this-- evenings together spent by the fire of his hearth, days of steady companionship-- he can survive an empty bed and a heart that beats too loudly.

“I’m sorry," he chokes out and gently detangles his hand from her own. The loss of contact aches.

Ingrid stares at him for a moment, then at his hand, and finally at her own. She stretches her fingers, and Sylvain can’t help but be drawn to every movement she makes. She's blushing prettily, and it's probably due to the alcohol, nevermind that she has barely taken a sip. 

“Sylvain,” she says, and he feels a little more lightheaded every single time she speaks his name. 

_I could kiss her,_ Sylvain thinks, and he takes a step back, putting some distance between them. He could kiss her right now, but he wouldn’t be able to stop. 

“I should go to bed,” he says instead, just to keep his lips busy. “We have a busy day ahead of us.”

Ingrid nods, a tinge of sadness in her smile. She doesn’t protest, sensible as always, and, Goddess be damned, he wants to kiss her even more for it. “I won’t keep you up any longer then. Goodnight, Sylvain.”

Sylvain stumbles through his own goodbyes, knowing full well that the phantom pain of everything that didn’t happen will keep him awake all night.

**XXX**

Enja’s fourth birthday party is a costumed ball, at her request. Naran is there too, this time dressed as a dragon while Enja wears the armor of a knight, based on Ingrid's armor. Sylvain watches them dance happily to the tunes of Annette’s voice. He never realized she could sing, but now that he knows he’s hiring her for every party he’s throwing for the rest of his life. 

From the corner of his eyes, he sees Dimitri cajole a secretly very willing Felix into a dance. Dedue dances with his wife, completely oblivious to the world around him, or perhaps more importantly, his twins wreaking havoc. Sylvain laughs and winks at the two kids when he catches them pulling a prank on his old steward. The man is retiring at the end of the year anyway, one last prank won’t hurt him too much. And heaven knows he suffered far worse by the hands of Sylvain, Ingrid, Felix, and Dimitri himself. 

A memory comes and goes. The light of the chandelier catches on Dimitri's crown, and Sylvain smiles. _Oh, how they've all grown._

It’s a testament to how accustomed he has become to peace that he doesn’t jump up when someone suddenly puts a hand on his forearm. 

“Why don’t you give her to me and enjoy your own party for a bit, Sylvain,” Mercedes says kindly, and holds up her arms expectantly. Khel is dead to the world. She has always been a deep sleeper. 

“Don’t you have your own flock to worry about?” Sylvain teases, eyeing the five orphans Mercedes has taken under her wing. They're dancing somewhat awkwardly with each other, looking unsure if they belong in a company made up of nobles and royalty. Little do they know that half of the children in attendance are commoners from either Sreng or the surrounding villages. 

“What’s one more?” Mercedes says. She all but pulls Khel out of his arms. “Go. She’s waiting for you.”

He doesn’t need to follow her gaze to know to whom she is referring. He has spent all night decidedly not looking at _her,_ after all. 

" _Sylvain_."

Sylvain bites his lip but surrenders his toddler. Mercie always had him wrapped around her little finger. “I shouldn’t,” he says, still not looking at Ingrid. 

Mercedes sighs, looking like a disappointed mother. "Are you afraid?" 

“Deathly,” Sylvain confesses. “What if--”

She cuts him off gently. “It’s a different world than the one we grew up in, Sylvain,” Mercedes reminds him. “Don't be afraid to be happy. We're all so proud of what you've become."

He chokes up, tears in his eyes. Mercedes opens the arm she isn’t using to hold Khel, and he all but dives into her embrace. His heart is full and there are a thousand things he wants to tell her that he can’t find the words to say. In the end, he settles for: "I love you, you know?"

“Me too.” Mercedes squeezes his shoulders one last time and then releases him. "We all do. So stop being afraid."

A complaint forms on his lips, but before he can voice it, Mercedes shoves him gently to the left, and he sees _her_. Ingrid is beautiful. Maybe she has always been, but Sylvain has always been a little blind. She’s wearing a traditional red Srengi dress that looks like she borrowed it from Naran, green ribbons woven into her hair. Perhaps more endearingly, she has put her lance down for a moment to stuff her face full of the same meat pie that Enja adores, completely ruining her lipstick.

“I told her to eat carefully…” Mercedes bemoans, but Sylvain barely hears her over the thunder in his chest.

Sylvain rubs the palm of his hand over his heart, and watches with rapt fascination as Enja runs up to Ingrid and sweet talks her into dancing with her. His heart feels five sizes too big for his chest when they sway together on the music, smiling from ear to ear. 

“Ingrid would be a great mother, wouldn’t she?” Mercedes says, and Sylvain nods, not able to pull his gaze away from the dancing pair.

Suddenly, the thought of Ingrid marrying a nameless noble and having a legion of children crosses his mind, and an irrational flash of fear accompanies the vision. She _would_ be a great mother, stern but loving. She has been absolutely great with his girls, effortlessly filling in the gap Naran left without overstepping boundaries.

He can’t imagine his life without her; he hasn’t been able for a long time now. He looks at Mercedes, asking her a question without actually speaking the words.

“You never know until you try, Sylvain,” she says, and gently pats his forearm.

Sylvain looks back at Ingrid and Enja, and then back at Mercedes. He gathers all of his strength and all of his courage and leans forward to press a chaste kiss against Mercedes’ forehead. “Thanks, Mercie. You’re the best.”

He doesn’t hear her reply, because before his courage deserts him, he stumbles his way onto the dancefloor until he reaches one particular dancing couple.

He makes a deep, theatrical bow to his daughter.“May I borrow the lady from you, milady?” He asks Enja with a teasing smile. 

Enja pretends to consider his request for a second before all but shoving Ingrid’s hand into his own. “Okay!”

“Why don’t you ask one of those lovely ladies to dance with you, princess?” he says and gestures at Mercedes’ children. 

Enja stomps her feet on the floor. “I’m not a princess! I’m a knight!” 

“Of course, my apologies.” Sylvain quickly says and presses a kiss against her chubby cheek. Appeased, Enja runs off to the group of children. It’s wonderful, how one's children are a reflection of yourself. Enja inherited his silver tongue and before the end of the song has cajoled the entire group in an improvised circular dance that looks like it came straight out of Sreng. 

His former father-in-law spots them and takes it as a sign to start singing Sreng folk songs with Naran. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to dance to this,” Ingrid confesses somewhat awkwardly. Their hands are still intertwined, palms warm against the other. 

Sylvain draws her in closer, one hand against her back and the other still holding hers. He’s close enough to count her lashes, to see the occasional grey hair in the sea of blond. “I can teach you.”

“I have two left feet.”

“Ingrid,” Sylvain whispers, leaning close. It’s because of the loud and somewhat off-key singing, he tells himself. He doesn’t know why he’s still lying to himself, but some habits die hard.

“Sylvain,” Ingrid says back, her voice steady.

“Please?” he tries again and gently sways her from left to right to the melody of the music. “Just tonight?”

“This could never be _just tonight._ ” Yet she allows herself to be pulled along anyway.

Ingrid is right, of course. He’s clinging to her as much as she is clinging to him, and Sylvain wonders if he could ever let her go again if they cross that line. 

“I’m not that kind of man anymore,” he says instead, but doesn’t lean in closer. 

“I know,” Ingrid says. Then, softer: “I’m proud of you. Of everything you’ve become and everything you’ve done.”

“I am too.” And he is surprised to find that he means it. He twirls her around and then pulls her back into his embrace. He can't help but notice that they fit together perfectly. “All my dreams have come true. All but one.”

Ingrid looks him straight in the eye, and there it is again, that hunger. But is it hunger? He has seen lust a thousand times before, and this isn’t it. Or rather, it is there, but that isn’t all of it. Her grip on his hand shifts, and then suddenly she is leading their dance, and Sylvain follows effortlessly.

“All but one?” she asks, her voice deceptively low. Her arms don’t even tremble from the strain when she dips him low, and instead, it is Sylvain that feels a bit faint. 

“All but one,” he confirms when she pulls him back up. Pressed chest to chest with naught a breath between them, they dance like they’re the only people in the world. He feels like he is on fire, but in these flames, he will gladly burn. 

He never dreamed of this, to be honest. Because this moment is better than anything he ever dared to dream of, and the way Ingrid feels against him is something he doesn't think he can ever live without anymore. Nor does he want to. 

Ingrid smiles, ever the brave one. “Then what are you waiting for, Gautier? Life waits for no one.”

Sylvain laughs breathlessly and, in the bravest moment of his life, finally gives in to the force of nature that has been pulling them together for over a decade, perhaps all of their lives. Ingrid’s lips taste nothing like he remembers; they taste better.

Around them, the ballroom erupts in a cacophony of cheers, but Sylvain couldn’t care less. It took them years to get to this point, and now that he finally has Ingrid in his arms, there is nothing in the world that can pull them apart again. 

**XXX**

Nothing really changes after that. Raising Enja en Khel is still his first priority, and Ingrid fits seamlessly into their little family. In a way, she had been part of it for a long time. They had already worked together when it came to managing the estate and further developing his territory, and just because they share a bed at night doesn’t mean Ingrid will refrain from telling him exactly how stupid she thinks his new legislation is the next morning. 

But at the same time, everything changes. Machines powered by steam become more and more commonplace, quickly outpacing menial labor and even magic. His girls grow up far too fast, and Naran remarries with a woman from Duscur. Byleth has another set of twins and Ashe starts courting Yuri, of all people. Together, they bury Annette’s father, and with him an era. 

Seasons change, children are born, and people die. Sylvain holds his children close, and kisses Ingrid a thousand times. It’s a new world, and amidst the wonders of it, perhaps the most perplexing thing is that Sylvain can wholeheartedly say that he is utterly and undoubtedly happy. 

But his last dream hasn’t come true yet. 

**XXX**

Felix visits them whenever he goes to Fraldarius to manage his affairs and his cousin. Now that little Beatrix has reached puberty, she is less than eager to inherit the duchy, much to Felix’s chagrin. Sylvain attentively listens to his complaints, filing it away as a favor for when his own girls reach that age, and he needs someone to vent to. 

Felix is in the middle of another rant when Sylvain gets up and gathers something he has been wanting to give away for ages. He dumps the package unceremoniously into Felix’s hands.

“What is… _this_?” Felix drawls out once he has undone the protective wrappings, holding the Lance of Ruin like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

“My fighting days are over. It belonged to my father. No use in keeping it around just to gather dust, am I right?” Sylvain says with mirth in his voice, mirroring Felix’s own words from years ago. 

Felix throws the Relic back at Sylvain, almost as if it burns him. “ _Sylvain_ ,” he growls, looking angrier than he usually does nowadays. It's almost nostalgic.

Sylvain interprets it as the question it is. “I’m sick of war. Of fighting. We’ve lost enough, all of us. And I…. I’m not making Enja or Khel pick up my slack.” Unlike their generation, and the many that came before them, his children are learning how to write before they are even allowed to get close to a weapon. “We’re at peace with Sreng. And I will keep that peace, using diplomacy alone. We don’t need this anymore, and as you said, it’s a waste of a good blade. So…” He trails off, and pushes the Relic back into Felix’s hands.

For a moment, Felix looks him straight in the eye, something that doesn’t happen too often. Whatever he is searching for there, he finds it quick enough. 

“No,” he says resolutely, and unceremoniously hands the lance back. 

Sylvain is not deterred and shoves it right back at him. “No? It’s not a question, Felix. It’s a gift.”

“And I’m not accepting it,” he says petulantly. “If you truly want to get rid of it, bury it in the garden. Hell, throw it in the ocean, for all I care. But until you do, this lance belongs to house Gautier, and I won’t take up your responsibilities. I have plenty of my own.”

_That’s not what this is about,_ Sylvain wants to say, but he knows that arguing with Felix is an exercise in futility. “Then who should I give it to? Byleth?” he asks. 

For a moment, Felix says nothing. When he speaks again, his voice has an odd tone to it. “Do you recall the story of Kyphon’s Blade?”

“Some kind of nonsensical romantic tale set around the time of the foundation of the Kingdom, about a woman on a pale horse…”

Felix nods. Sylvain’s eye is drawn the way Felix’s fingers absentmindedly caresses the hilt of a longsword strapped to his side. Sylvain is no expert, but even from a distance, he can sense that this is no ordinary blade, and yet he has never seen Felix use it. Felix owns a thousand blades, but none of them are so carefully adorned with a Blaiddyd blue bow made of pure silk.

Oh.

_Oh._

“What do you mean?” he asks, his throat suddenly dry. His gaze shoots to Felix’s ring finger. There is nothing there, but that doesn’t have to mean a thing when he's wearing the finest blade in the country, doesn’t it?

“I think we both know what I mean,” Felix says irritatedly, but it is the tell-tale embarrassed blush on his cheek that betrays him. “Stop being a coward already. You’re better than this, Sylvain. We’re getting old. Get on with it already.”

This time, Sylvain doesn’t protest when Felix hands him the Relic back. His hands are sweating, and he has a thousand questions that Felix would l probably rather die than give him answers to, but it doesn’t matter. He knows what he needs to do. What he _wants_ to do.

“Thanks, Felix,” he says with a heavy voice, and considers the odds of Felix allowing him to hug him for the second time this decade.

Felix turns his head away and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

As it turns out, Sylvain is terrible at math, and despite his calculations, Felix does not want to be hugged. Good thing that being around Ingrid means that some of her tenacity has rubbed off on him. 

**XXX**

“Enja, Khel?” he asks his babies one evening when they’re snuggled on either side of him, stuffed dolls taking up the rest of the space in his large bed. “Daddy has a very important question for you.”

“What is it?” Khel asks, ever patient.

He takes a deep breath. “Would you like it if I remarried?”

Enja looks at him thoughtfully for a moment. “Like mommy?” Sylvain nods. “But what about Ingrid then? Won’t she be sad?”

Sylvain had expected tantrums, objections, and manipulations. But not this. “I would like to ask Ingrid to marry me, actually.”

Enja looks shocked. “You’re not married to her yet?” 

A warm, fuzzy feeling fills Sylvain, and he presses a kiss against the crown of her hair. “No, sweetheart.”

Khel, always so quiet and composed, immediately launches herself up to her feet. “Then what are you waiting for?” she scolds him, one hand on her hip and the other already in his nightshirt. “Go, ask her now!” 

Enja pushes him off the bed. “Quick, before she goes away!”

Sylvain laughs, and launches himself back on the bed, and pulls his girls in a big embrace. Why was he so anxious? His girls love Ingrid almost as much as he does. It’s just a formality at this point. 

“Not now, my little princesses! I have to do it properly, don’t you think?”

“There should be flowers,” Khel agrees with all of her five-year-old wisdom. “Mama had flowers when she married Daliah.”

Enja flashes him a smile, missing teeth and all. “And a ring! They always have a ring in the stories Ingrid reads us!”

“Actually,” Sylvain says, smiling from cheek to cheek. “I have something better in mind. Has anyone ever told you the story of Kyphon’s blade?”

His girls shake their heads. Sylvain pulls Khel on his lap and tugs Enja into his side, and lowers his voice a little, his tone as theatrical as he can make it. “Once upon a time, a woman on a pale horse rode into the King’s land, carrying with her nothing but a sword and a single blue flower….”

**XXX**

His girls promise to keep his secret for as long as they can, which is, optimistically speaking, a day at most. Enja idolizes Ingrid, and Sylvain doesn’t want to risk it. 

It has to be right. He knows Ingrid’s history with marriage proposals. He doesn’t want this to be just another one of them, no. This has to be _the one_.

Enja and Khel enlist half the children in the castle village, and before lunchtime, his solar is a veritable sea of flowers. Ingrid looks at him strangely when she enters the room. She has never been one for fancy clothes or bouquets. The way to Ingrid's heart is through her stomach, so Sylvain has made sure to fill his tea table with every kind of tart and baked goods he could get his hands on. 

“What is this all about?” she asks, one eyebrow raised. 

Sylvain smiles, nervous all over. “A gift from the girls,” he explains and draws her in for a kiss. 

She doesn't look entirely convinced but allows herself to be distracted. “You’re a lucky father." 

Sylvain moves a few flowers off her chair before she can sit down. “They’re not for me, actually.” 

“For who are they then?”

“You,” Sylvain says, gripping his cup of tea like a lifeline. 

“ _Me?_ ” Ingrid visibly stiffens. “Why?” 

Sylvain opens his mouth to say something, but the words are stuck in his throat. _You mean the world to me,_ he wants to say. _I never want to wake up without you next to me. When I think of family, I keep picturing you and me and my girls -_ _our_ _girls._

He had prepared a speech, of course, although Enja kept changing parts of it to fit her whims. But now that Ingrid is sitting in front of him, he can’t quite get the words out. He has spent his whole life relying on flowery language, and now that he needs it the most, it’s all gone. Thanks brain, not helpful. 

She’s not wearing anything different, and she smells faintly like her pegasus and a hearth meal. It’s a Tuesday, just a normal Tuesday, but at the same time, it is so much more. The death of a bachelor. The beginning of a new life, together. 

Ingrid leans forward and grasps his hand. It’s trembling. “Sylvain… what’s going on? It’s not my birthday, I would know.” 

“Do you know the story of Kyphon’s Blade?” Sylvain asks, which really is the worst thing he could have said because while he occasionally enjoys a good book, Ingrid spends half her nights poured over thick tomes, cradling them like they are her babies. 

“Of course, it’s one of His Majesty’s favorite stories.” She closes her eyes, probably picturing the ancient tome in the Royal Library in Fhirdiad, and recounts: “Kyphon’s lover courted him for years, giving him more lavish gifts every day while asking for his hand in marriage. Every day, he refused her suit and threw her gifts out. Until one day, she brought him her family’s sacred weapon-- supposedly the blade of Moralta, which Kyphon later used to 'cut' the Kingdom from the Empire-- and promised...” she trails off, her eyes wide as the realization dawns upon her. 

His hands are no longer trembling when he wordlessly stands up and starts unearthing a long package from underneath the sea of flowers. He hadn’t been lying when he told his girls their contribution was essential, although not in the way he allowed them to think it was. 

“Sylvain?” Ingrid’s voice is trembling, her hand on her lips. She’s staring at him with wide eyes.

He wants to kiss her so badly, but that’s not for now. Instead, he conquers the butterflies in his stomach and goes down on one knee in front of her. He hears Ingrid gasp when he carefully unpacks and reveals the ever-ominously glowing Lance of Ruin. He doesn’t hesitate when he offers it up to her.

“You can’t just… _give_ me that,” Ingrid utters breathlessly, her eyes wide with something close to fear or regret or something else Sylvain wishes was joy. “That’s your family’s Heroes Relic. It belongs to House Gautier.”

“If I have my way, it will remain in House Gautier,” Sylvain says softly, smiling sincerely. “Will you marry me, Ingrid?”

**XXX**

“Congratulations on your engagement,” Dimitri says three weeks later when they all meet at the Garreg Mach class reunion. It is a bittersweet event-- the Golden Deer and Black Eagle classrooms’ emptiness echoes louder than ever, even after all these years, but Sylvain tries not to let it get to him. His girls are playing hide and seek in the monastery gardens with the other children, and all of his childhood friends are here. The sun is shining brightly but there is a pleasant breeze. 

_I've had worse days,_ he thinks, and looks at his king standing next to him. They both have.

“Thanks, Your Majesty,” he says warmly. “Not just for that, actually. Who would have thought that you had it right all along? Girls dig weapons after all!” he exclaims with mock annoyance. “Man, after all these years the student has become the teacher. I’m proud, Your Majesty!”

Dimitri sighs, looking years older than he is. “Please, call me by my name already, Sylvain.”

“I guess I owe it to you, Dimitri,” Sylvain says, feeling particularly generous today. “If you hadn’t given Felix that sword, I would have never thought of proposing to Ingrid.”

Dimitri’s remaining eye goes comically wide. “Wha-- what does that have to do with anything?” He's not a terrible liar, but the way he grasps something hanging on a string around his neck tells Sylvain everything he needs to know. 

Sylvain barks a laugh and wraps an arm around his king’s shoulder. From a distance, he sees Felix shoot him a warning look, but he’s still carrying the same priceless sword on his belt.

Sylvain turns back to Dimitri and gives him a conspiratorial wink. “Don’t worry, I can keep a secret.” 

Dimitri looks like he wants to deny it for a moment, but then he just buries his face in his hands. 

“How long have you known?” he asks, sounding more happy than devastated. “Why didn’t you _say_ something?”

“That depends; how long did you know about me and Ingrid, and didn’t say anything?” 

Dimitri wisely does not answer that, and ever the good friend, Sylvain gracefully changes the subject. “So… speaking of kids… how are you guys planning on doing that?”

“We’re considering visiting an orphanage in southern Fhirdiad soon." The stars in Dimitri's eye make Sylvain feel warm and fuzzy on the inside too. “Felix has some…. _reservations_ about fatherhood.”

Sylvain barks a laugh. “Trust me, I understand that better than anyone. Let me know if you need any help. I know a thing or two about kids, I’d say.”

Dimitri forgoes all etiquette and bows gratefully before him. “You’ve already done so much for me, for the Kingdom. I feel like it is my time to do something for you, for once.”

“Be a good king. An even better husband. And the very best father,” Sylvain says without having to think about it for a second. “That’s all I want. All I ever wanted.”

Sylvain doesn’t tell him that he is already doing him the greatest favor he could ever do. The next King or Queen will not have a Crest or any holy bloodline whatsoever. When he pictures the future, it is a vision in which Crests and Heroes Relics are a thing of the past, and it is no longer a pipe dream. Sylvain smiles. It truly is a brave new world. 

“Still, if there is anything within my power---”

“I will ask,” Sylvain shushes him. “This time for real, I swear,” he adds when Dimitri stares at him with visible doubt. He doesn’t want to know what he and Felix talk about behind their backs. “I’ve got Ingrid by my side. And my girls, of course. I think I’ll be fine this time.” 

He turns to look at Ingrid, who is teaching one of Mercedes’ adopted children how to properly brush a pegasus’s feathers. She must have felt his gaze, because within seconds, she looks up and meets his eyes. 

Sylvain blows her a kiss and feels his heart explode when she pretends to catch it, pressing her fingers to her lips. A ray of sunshine catches on her engagement ring, and Sylvain feels like the richest man in the world.

**XXX**

Naran leads him to the altar on the day of his wedding, while Khel and Enja make sure Ingrid’s veil doesn’t drag over the ground. She walks the long way to the altar on her own, but her father sits among the guests, tears in his eyes. All their friends are there, but Sylvain barely sees them. He's too starstruck by the sight of his soon-to-be-wife. She looks beautiful in white and green.

The entire ceremony is a blur, this time not because of a hangover-- he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol in months-- but because he is lost in Ingrid’s eyes. 

He’s pretty sure Byleth cuts her speech short halfway through because she sounds exactly like she did when she caught him not paying attention in class when she says, “You may now kiss the bride.”

“Finally,” Sylvain whispers with tears in his eyes, and leans down to do just that.

**XXX**

In the summer of Sylvain’s 40th birthday, Enja and Khel welcome a baby brother into the world. Sylvain holds him in one bloody hand while clutching his wife’s in the other. Ingrid looks at him like she did after the end of the war: bloody and utterly exhausted, but happier than he had seen her in a long time. Considering the bliss they have been living in the past few years, that’s saying something.

Sylvain kisses her brow, feeling proud enough to burst. “You did it.”

“No,” she says, pulling him and their son closer to her. “We did it together.”

A tear travels down Sylvain’s cheek, but he’s smiling too. “Welcome to the world, Tristan Naran Gautier. You will know nothing but love and peace for all of your days.” 

**XXX**

_As Margrave Gautier, Sylvain devoted his life to improving relations with the people of Sreng. Under his leadership, nobles were persuaded that Relics and Crests were not necessary as they'd previously thought. Though he went down in history as an extraordinary lord, he could not have done so without the constant support and counsel of his wife, Ingrid, whose wisdom and tenacity ensured that the people would prosper. Sylvain was ever loyal to his beloved wife. The couple had many children, and while not one of them bore a Crest, they were all equally and wholeheartedly loved._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >   
>  _When Enja came of age, she gave up her title with the blessing of her parents. Khel instead inherited both Naran and Sylvain’s title and continued her parent’s lifelong work to bring Fodlan and Sreng closer together, assisted by her many younger siblings. Although their achievements were nothing short of astounding, the history books would credit the many songs Enja composed and sang as the greatest contribution to building bridges between both cultures. Centuries later, the people of Fodlan still perform her magnum opus: “Death of a Marriage,” an opera based on the life and love of her parents and stepparents. It is said that the greatest Prima Donna of her generation refused to perform any other role than that of Ingrid, who she claimed to be her greatest role model. Fodlan knew peace for all of her days, and that of her children._  
> 
> 
> Thank you very much for reading this story. I loved writing it and building these characters. I'm not very good at unambiguously happy endings, but on the other hand I have put them though enough pain, and I want everyone to be happy too. I have a lot of thoughts on this story and these characters left, and I could write epics about Naran, Enja, Khel, and Tristan, but I will refrain. Instead, I will thank you all for your kind words and patience. Thanks to the Sylgrid discord server for being ever encouraging. Above all, thank you Abby and the rest of Dedue's Harem, for your friendship and assistance. Love you! 😘 

**Author's Note:**

> [I'm on twitter and tumblr as ingrimasname btw.](https://twitter.com/ingrimasname)


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